22545https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/122/3534/ATaitJT160610.1.mp39f0edd1b79ed6f88dccec2e22a8097deDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceTait, John John TaitJ T TaitDescriptionAn account of the resourceSix items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Thomas Tait (1923 - 2019, 175522 Royal Air Force), his service and release book and four photographs. John Tait flew 34 operations with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe as a wireless operator / air gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Tait and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-10IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextTait, JTRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by [name of the lender] and catalogued by [name of the cataloguer].
Transcribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentMC: This interview is being conducted on behalf of the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewee is John Tait and the interviewer is Mike Connock. The interview is taking place at the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archives at Riseholme College on Friday 10th June 2016. Also present at the interview are Alan Tait, Mrs Beryl Tait and Ken Tait. OK John, what I want you to do is just tell me a bit about um, when and where you were born for a start.
JT: Well I was born in America in Helena, Montana and my mother was English and my Dad was Scottish. Anyway my mum had had enough of travelling abroad so she wanted to come home. So when I was five she brought me to England and that was fine. Took a while to get used to people, people getting used to me actually. But anyway, when the war started we —
MC: Yeah, go on John, it’s just, what did your parents do? What was —
JT: My dad was, he was a retired cattle farmer and my mother was a retired school teacher.
MC: So how old were you when you came to —
JT: I was five.
MC: Five.
JT: Five, yes.
MC: So you started school in the UK?
JT: I started school in the UK, yeah.
MC: And that was? What year were you born?
JT: 1923.
MC: 1923, yes. So this would be ’28 when you came to us.
JT: It was, yes.
MC: And, so what about school days in those days, what was that like?
JT: Well school days, well I went to a local school, I didn’t start until I was six but it was very good, a local school, I enjoyed it and then when I was eleven I went up to, oh hell where did I go, oh God, isn’t it awful. Temple Road Central Boys School in Birkenhead. It was a secondary school and I went there and very good, I was accepted even though I was from the outer districts because they were nearly all lads from the city. But we got on ok, I did very well. In fact I played football for their team, but anyway I went to school there ‘til I was fourteen and then I took me O levels, except they weren’t O levels then but it were whatever. Anyway then I went to work in an office to train as a cost accountant, me dad knew someone who had an office and he would train — so I went to train as a cost accountant. Anyway, when the war broke out I was eighteen years of age and I didn’t like being in an office all day so I volunteered for the RAF.
MC: What made you choose the RAF?
JT: Well there were two pals of mine, lived in the same road as me and they were both wireless operator air gunners and neither of them came back, they both lost their life. One was Derek Jones and the other was Bob Christie, Bob Christie, yeah. They both lost their lives as it happened, but I was the only one of the three that came back. But anyway I volunteered for the RAF —
MC: So that was when you were eighteen?
JT: Eighteen yes.
MC: Oh right.
JT: I went to Padgate for six weeks, square bashing and then we went to Black — [pause] While I was there I volunteered for air crew and um, I went to Blackpool on a wireless operators air gunners course.
MC: Hmm.
JT: I forget how long it was but anyway I did a tour there and then I went to Stormy Down to do an air gunners course and then I qualified for that and I was posted to a place called Bruntingthorpe which, where they trained lads straight from school
MC: Was that an operational training unit?
JT: Pardon?
MC: Operational training unit?
JT: Operational training, yep. So I —
MC: Do you remember which one it was?
JT: Bruntingthorpe.
MC: Bruntingthorpe.
JT: Bruntingthorpe yep. RAF Bruntingthorpe yeah. Anyway, I did me tour there and the next thing was to go to a higher, err, higher course for wireless operators up north. So I went up there and while we were there they were sorting out the air gunners. Well I got picked to go down to Stormy Down to do a six week air gunners course, which I did and I enjoyed. Anyway, having finished that we then went to Market Harborough, I think. And the skipper was there . Dougie Milligan came round, he was picking his crew for the Anson.
MC: And that was where you crewed up, at Market Harborough?
JT: That’s were I got picked by Dougie Milligan to go with him, yeah. That’s right. We went, we did, we went from there to —
MC: Market Harborough, that would have been the OTU I suspect.
JT: Sorry?
MC: Was the Operational Training Unit at Market —
JT: That was, the OTU at Market Harborough, OTU, it was yeah. And we went from Market Harborough to um, —
MC: Can I just interrupt you there. Um, at Market Harborough was that just the five crew?
JT: We hadn’t got, yes it was. We hadn’t got a full crew then.
MC: Because that was on, oh, what aircraft was that?
JT: It was on Wellingtons.
MC: Wellingtons, yeah.
JT: Because we were on Wellingtons yeah. Anyway, we picked up a oh, um, bit of a gunner [?] I think there.
MC: And a flight engineer?
JT: And that’s what we did. We were on Wellingtons. We hadn’t got a flight engineer, [coughs).
MC: Where did you pick those up?
JT: Picked them up at Market Harborough, picked two up at Market Harborough.
MC: Oh you did pick them up at Market Harborough did you?
JT: We didn’t pick the [pause] flight engineer, we picked him up later because they hadn’t got flight engineers on Lancs. But anyway, as it happened when he joined us and we went to um, from there to, oh, somewhere in North Lincoln, I don’t know. Oh I know, we went to go on Stirlings, that’s right at Scampton. We went to Scampton.
BT: Oooh.
JT: That’s right. And the skipper converted on to Stirlings and we picked up a, oh, [pause]
MC: Flight engineer?
JT: Flight engineer.
MC: Yup.
JT: And his name was Jimmy James and he came from Liverpool, funnily enough but he was a good lad. He’d been, he came from South Africa actually. He’d been a mechanic out there for years, he was, and he wanted to join air crew to bring him back home to train so he joined us and they brought him back to train as a flight engineer which he was delighted and he was with us until the end of our tour.
MC: So was that at a Lancaster finishing school or a conversion unit?
JT: Oh yes, it was Stirlings, Lancs finishing school yeah.
MC: Yeah, oh yeah, it was a heavy conversion unit.
JT: It was a conversion school.
MC: Yeah, yep, hmm.
JT: They were horrible things, big [laughter]the Stirling but we flew quite a lot of trips, not operations but flights. And then we went from having completed our course on Stirlings, we then went to [pause] we went on the squadron, that’s right.
MC: Did you not, you must have gone and converted from Stirlings to Lancasters?
JT: We converted to Lancasters, we didn’t convert to Lancs until we got to the squadron.
MC: Oh didn’t you?
JT: No I don’t think so. I’m just trying to think —
MC: You went to the Lancaster Finishing School I think, was that, um did you not go to —
JT: It was Scampton [unclear] converted on to Lancasters at Scampton, that’s right, yes we did, yeah. And err, that was when our crew was formed, we’d got a full crew.
MC: Yep.
JT: [pause] I’m sorry if it’s a bit bitty.
MC: Oh no, no it’s not. It’s fine, it’s no problem and so you got, so um, I mean up until then you got posted to your squadron but all the crew was made up.
JT: That’s right. There was, Dougie Milligan picked us up from, originally from Bruntingthorpe, that was it. [pause]
MC: Just going back slightly, back to when you joined up, um, as a teenager what was life like growing up just before the war. I’m sorry to have —
JT: It was fine, well I used to, I enjoyed football, I played a lot of football but of course when the war started we were classed as aliens.
MC: Oh!
JT: Because I was an American citizen, and we used to have to report to the police station once a month and that’s why I said ‘blow this I’m going to join the RAF’ so I did. [laughter] Yeah.
MC: So having been to the err, operation training unit, conversion unit, you were then posted to err, —
JT: Skellingthorpe
OTHER: Skellingthorpe, 50 Squadron.
JT: Yeah, that’s right.
MC: Can you remember arriving at Skellingthorpe, much about the station?
JT: Aah, we thought it was a bit out in the wilderness but err, yeah, we did no it was great, when you‘ve got a crew around you, you were quite happy.
MC: Yeah by that time they’d got the concrete runways and things like that.
JT: Oh yes, that’s right.
MC: Hmm, yeah. So, can you remember much about your first operation, all your operations, your first one for instance?
JT: No.
MC: Did it not stick with you.
JT: Doesn’t ring a bell. As I say, I did thirty three all with Dougie Milligan and I did one as a spare bod with a skipper named Mike, oh Pete Stockwell.
MC: What was his name? Pete?
JT: Peter Stockwell. He was a flight sergeant, he’d gone with me from Skellingthorpe to there, to train and they didn’t just trust him on Wellingtons so they put him on the Stirling. He would fly, flying a fighter, that’s right flying Spitfires 'til he pranged one and they told him to get off the squadron and get back to the squadron so he asked me would I go back with him and I said ‘of course I would’. So we formed another crew up and that was it.
MC: I mean you did some hairy operations. Does anything stand out in particular?
JT: Um, no, err, [pause].
OTHER: You said that, you know —
JT: The Ruhr Valley was the worst.
MC: Rurh, yeah, yeah [unclear]
OTHER: Well some of the operations you did were, you know, you did Munich –
JT: Pardon?
OTHER: You did Munich didn’t you?
JT: That was the longest, the longest trip was Munich I think.
OTHER: Yeah, Munich.
OTHER: Did you do Berlin?
JT: No.
OTHER: Yes, at the time, ‘cos at the time you were joining it was the lead up, leading up to D-Day.
JT: That’s right.
MC: So you would, did you do some, you obviously did some invasion support operations?
JT: Well we did some in France, we did a few trips in France, that’s right, that’s right yeah.
MC: Yeah, so the actual raids themselves you don’t remember much about?
JT: The operations? No. Ah, well —
MC: How did you feel, I mean did you err, —
JT: Probably scared stiff to start with, but err, —
MC: Yeah.
JT: But you got used to
MC: That’s what I’m trying to get at, you know, how did you —
JT: That’s right the first trip I always remember the first trip. I can’t remember where it was but I couldn’t believe it and I looked out of my rear window and I could see the fires down below and I said to Jimmy Marlow, ‘Jim come and have a look’. ‘Not bloody likely’ he said, ‘I’m sitting here’ and he was sitting on the table drinking his tea. He wouldn’t have a look out of the window.
MC: And Jimmy Marlow was the?
JT: He was the, he was the navigator.
MC: The navigator, yes.
JT: He was a sergeant or a flight sergeant then. Yeah. He’d worked for the Air Ministry and he wanted to get a commission so they could give him a position to go back to, when he went back from the RAF. Which he got in the end.
MC: So I, I gather Doug Milligan was a good skipper then?
JT: Oh, Dougie, yes.
MC: He got you through thirty three operations.
JT: He was dead on, he really was, he was.
MC: And you all had a good crew, you all got on well.
JT: Very good. We were lucky with the crew.
MC: Yeah, what about —
JT: We lost our rear gunner for a while at the end because he got frostbite and he was invalided out of the RAF and we got another, just for a couple of trips, but err, yeah we got on great.
MC: Yeah, what about socialising in the area round Lincoln?
JT: Oh.
MC: Don’t give too much away.
JT: You know Lincoln was a wonderful place to socialise, people were so friendly, it was great, they really were.
MC: You used to go out most evenings?
JT: Most evenings we’d be down the pub, local pub. In fact there was one night we were all out on the booze and they decided to put an op on and they sent the RAF Police round Lincoln calling for all members of 50 Squadron to come back and we went back to the squadron but we, some of them were half canned. Dougie Milligan wouldn’t bother, well he wasn’t a great drinker. He liked a drink but he wasn’t a great drinker, but the rest of us were [laughter].
MC: [laughter] you made full use of the local hostelries.
JT: That’s right, there’s a lot of nice people in Lincoln.
MC: So what, which, where did you used to go? Can you remember?
JT: I can’t remember the name of the pub. There was a pub down the road from Skellingthorpe and there was a lady there, she invited us in one night. Her husband works, he was working away, working on a job or something and she had two or three daughters or nurses who visited and she invited us to join them for a party one night and um, the night they put the operation off we were in Lincoln, she was sat in the back kitchen with me feeding me coffee to sober me up before we went back [laughter]. She was great, a lovely lady and she was, oh what was her name? No, it’s gone. She was lovely, the people were lovely they really were.
MC: So you got around in Lincoln?
JT: Oh yeah, no complaints
MC: Yes. It’s err, you were a wireless operator?
JT: Wireless operator, yes.
MC: Can you, I mean [pause] so you was a WOP air gunner, so I mean I gather you had your 21st birthday while you was on the squadron?
JT: Oh yes.
MC: So um, how did you celebrate that?
JT: [laughter] down the pub [laughter].
MC: [laughter] So they looked after you did they on your 21st?
JT: Oh yeah, had a fabulous time.
MC: So what did you get up to on that then? Anything special?
JT: Nothing, well apart from going for a drink in the pub, that’s about it, that’s all we did anyway.
MC: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JT: We hadn’t got enough money to go buying it or wining and dining but we went for a pint, yeah.
MC: Can you remember much about your C — Commanding Officer? Whoever your CO was?
JT: I’ll tell you who he was, not the Commanding Officer. Marshall of the Royal Air Force, Sir Mike Beetham.
MC: Uhuh.
JT: He, I think he was a flight lieutenant on our squadron and he was a flight lieutenant a very, B Flight, no sorry, I was on B, he was on A Flight. Yeah, Mike Beetham was on A Flight. He was a great bloke, very approachable, very pleasant chap.
MC: Did you know any of his crew?
JT: Well I did at the time but I don’t now. But —
MC: Sir Michael Beetham, so as I say, Reg Payne was Michael Beetham’s wireless operator. So you may know him.
JT: Oh well that’s somebody I’d perhaps recognise.
MC: How’s your morse these days then?
JT: Sorry?
MC: How’s our morse these days, morse code?
JT: I haven’t done any, dit dah dah. I can do it though.
MC: I’m sure you can.
JT: Yeah.
MC: Yeah. So you, obviously you finished your tour, you say you did thirty three?
JT: I did thirty three and then I stayed on, we were all, the crew was then dispersed, they was —
MC: Yeah?
JT: And I stayed on and did one trip with Pete Stockwell.
MC: Yeah? [pause] Yeah, and then where did you go from there?
JT: We went from there to um, I think we went to Market Harborough with Pete Stockie.
MC: Back to Market Harborough.
JT: Yep. He was told to get himself a crew and get back on the squadron, he was a bit of a lad was Pete, [laughter] flight lieutenant [laughter] but we have got a [unclear]
MC: So he finished up as a flight lieutenant then did he?
JT: Pete did.
MC: Yeah?
JT: Yeah. Well, our navigator Barney, he was a navigator with Pete, he was a flight lieutenant too. But we were, the rest of us were senior NCOs, yep.
MC: So how long were you at Market Harborough then on the OTU?
JT: Probably, maybe a year, a couple of years.
MC: As long as that?
JT: Well what they did, they asked, 35 Squadron was formed to do formation flying, twelve Lancs in formation and we were on that, Pete Stocky was on that so we went with him, formation flying. We used to do all over the country and then we went to America to celebrate Army Air Corps Day. We did six weeks tour in the States formation flying.
MC: So that would have been in ’45 then?
JT: That would be yeah, maybe ’46 I don’t know.
MC: How long were you over there?
JT: A long time ago.
MC: You was over there a long time?
JT: Well six weeks. We did six weeks.
MC: You enjoyed that?
JT: We started off in New York, went right down to the south coast and round about. We were the first crew to fly over the White House. They allowed aircraft to fly over the White House and the Lancs flew over there. But, oh we had a six weeks tour [unclear]
MC: And that was with 35 Squadron?
JT: 35 Squadron. We were entertained, taken to Hollywood, we were entertained in Hollywood shown the people doing the rehearsals and acting. We had a wonderful time really. Couldn’t, couldn’t do any wrong. [laughter] We came back and I asked to do me time after that. I only had about a fortnight to do when we came back. I got demobbed and that was it. But we had a wonderful time.
MC: So when were you demobbed?
JT: Uh —
MC: Because you stayed in —
JT: Before, I signed up for six months. I didn’t actually do the full six months I don’t think. They let me out early. I forget now to be honest.
OTHER: Indeed, probably late ’45.
MC: Yeah. So having come out the Air Force, what did you after the Air Force then?
JT: I needed a job obviously. I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to be a cost accountant, there was no way. And a pal of mine worked for McAlpines, he was in the office at Sir Alfred McAlpines so I got a job, he got me a job in the office Sir Alfred McAlpines and I started there off as a [pause] stationery assistant then I was posted, I got asked to go out on site, I became a timekeeper then I became office manager and then became an area office manager and then while I was doing that I was doing a lot of the work that surveyors were doing and the chief surveyor said to me ‘John,’ he said ‘why don’t you take up surveying?’ he said, ‘you know more than these buggers’. So I applied and I went to the college of building for about six years I think, five years and I studied to be a quantity surveyor and became a chartered surveyor and I finished up my time in Cheshire County, yes I worked for Chester City, Cheshire County.
MC: So when did you meet Beryl then?
JT: Oh, I met Beryl way back, that was when —
BT: [laughter] Ah, when was that? I was —
JT: Where was I working then?
BT: Seventeen or eighteen, whenever that was because I’m eighty five on Sunday.
JT: Aye, that’s not good. Where were you, you were working at McKagan Barnes (?) weren’t you?
BT: Sorry?
JT: You were working at McKagan Barnes (?)
BT: Yeah, and I was in the accountants office.
JT: She was training in the accountant’s office.
MC: So that, you met before the war?
JT: Sorry?
MC: You met before the war?
JT: Oh, no.
BT: Oh no, after that.
MC: After the war?
BT: I used to see him very often going back off leave in his RAF uniform and I used to think, oh he looks alright and you know, [laughter] not realising I’d end up marrying you [laughter]. But um, no we just met virtually at a dance at the local dance hall.
JT: That’s right.
MC: Yes.
BT: He came in, we spent that whole night dancing. I was going out with the drummer in the band and I said to — when John said ‘can I take you home?’ and I said ‘well, see the chap playing the drums, he is my boyfriend so you’d better come with me to tell him’. So he did and, told him and I got a phone call from the chap the next day and he said ‘I can’t believe you did that’. I said, ‘well I’m sorry’ I said, ‘I’ve now met somebody else so we’ll just have to call it a day’.
MC: You must have been a bit of a lad in those days.
BT: I thought, well I could have just —
JT: I was a bit of a lad.
BT: I could have just walked out but I thought no, I’ll do the right thing and tell him.
JT: Thank you.
BT: And the fact that he didn’t like it well, you know [laughter].
OTHER: [unclear]
MC: Going back to the operational times.
JT: Well once you, sitting there with a [unclear] the searchlight picked you up as you went in and the skipper had to do evasive action which was climb and roll and—
MC: Corkscrew.
JT: and climb and roll. That happened on many operations.
MC: Yeah.
JT: But it was something you used to —
MC: Any close mishaps with other aircraft then?
JT: Oh, aye. Many a time. [laughter]. And our foreign friends but err —
MC: So you, you had a few escapades with some fighters then?
JT: Yep.
MC: Yeah. And managed to get away unscathed?
JT: That’s right.
MC: Obviously a good skipper.
JT: Thanks to the skipper. Yep, that’s right. Oh yes every, there was always other things with somebody on one of the ops.
MC: Did you always get them back to base at the same, you know?
JT: Yeah we did, we always got back, we, the last time we were, aah, the skipper was advised to make a landing in the South of England and we agreed. We were going on leave the next day so we said ‘come on we’ll give it a go’, so we went back and we got back and when we got back one of the aircraft engines packed up as we landed but err, the skipper got a remand for it. No we were cheering. Yeah. There were all kinds of little incidents but they were well, sort of part of the daily routine, or night routine.
MC: For you, yes.
JT: It was.
MC: [laughter] So, yeah, I mean it’s, you talked about it, I mean you say there were lots of incidents. Can you remember other incidences? Did you ever get diverted coming back, apart from that one incident when you didn’t go back?
JT: I think that’s the only occasion, which we didn’t — What they did, they sent a fighter out from Tangmere, which we ignored [laughter] and went back anyway, but err, that’s the only time.
MC: You ignored the fighter. What was he there to do?
JT: Pardon?
MC: What was the fighter from Tangmere there to do?
JT: It was a, oh bloody hell, I don’t know.
MC: No, what, why did they send him out?
JT: To guide us into Tangmere.
MC: Aaahh.
JT: But we didn’t take any notice. We went back, yeah. What was it, I forget the aircraft now, I knew it —
MC: So you never got any problems with coming back in bad weather, to Skellingthorpe then?
JT: Oh we did have rough times. From time to time you came in you could hardly land because of the weather but we made it. We’d got a good skipper in Dougie Milligan, he really was. He was a, he wasn’t, he was just going for it as much as I should have been, but err, he was on the ball and a good skipper.
MC: Yeah. So the flight engineer, he was?
JT: Oh Jimmy James was a great lad, oh yeah.
MC: A name like Jimmy James? [laughter]
JT: Yes, well he had a garage in Liverpool and I tried to find out about him and I found out about a week after he died. I used to belong the Aircrew Association, I think it was. And I asked them to fish out for any documents and they said the only one we’ve got is Jimmy James and he died a week ago and he was our flight engineer. Our bomb aimer, the one I would like to get in touch with is Ronnie Pugh, ‘cos Ronnie Pugh came to our house. In fact there’s a picture of him at our house, he came to our house, he was a great lad was Ronnie. He was a professional pianist before the war, he played for Maurice Winnick and wherever we went, on the piano, we always had a gang round together. [laughter] No problems with drinking with him.
MC: So, he was the navigator you say?
JT: He was the bomb aimer.
MC: What about the navigator?
JT: Jimmy, was very —
MC: Jimmy, this was Jimmy James, no Jimmy James was the flight engineer.
JT: Marlow. He was one of two who were married. He was married, a lovely wife, a young lady. He’d just got married and she came with us a couple of times, not on train journeys, elsewhere, and Jimmy, he never came out a lot. He didn’t go on the binge like us so much but he was a great bloke, Jimmy. He, he was the one who worked for the Air Ministry before the war and he wanted to get a commission so it would stand him in good stead when he got demobbed. But he did get it just before we finished, he did get one. He was only a, Robbie Pugh already had one, he was a pilot officer when he joined us.
MC: And your mid upper? That was —
JT: Jock Bryman [?] he was a flight sergeant.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Big Scotsman, a canny lad. [laughter]
MC: You don’t know what he did before the war?
JT: No I haven’t got a clue.
MC: No, no. And in the tail, rear gunner?
JT: Johnny Austin, but I don’t know what he did before the war but he got frostbite and he was invalided out of the RAF, Johnny Austin was. We had a spare gunner for a couple of trips, I think.
MC: Did you, [unclear] did you know much about 50 Squadron when you were posted there? Had they told you much? Did you know of it?
JT: No, I didn’t know anything about it at all. Not the slightest, no. It was a good squadron, and I’ll tell you what, we had a good mob.
MC: Hm. [pause] Yeah, as I say, you talked about your birthday, and so your raid on your birthday was that railway junction.
JT: Yes, well I sort of [unclear]
MC: You couldn’t celebrate it in the air could you eh? Or did you?
JT: No, no, no we didn’t.
MC: [laughter] A successful operation though, um. So you probably, so I mean, it wasn’t um, it wasn’t 16th April you were on operations?
JT: We must have gone down the pub.
MC: So you must have been down the pub.
JT: We would do, yes.
MC: That’s a good excuse, but you didn’t need an excuse in those days.
JT: [laughter] Hardly.
MC: So I mean, if, if I guess you’re looking at your first tour was um, your first operation even was er, was marshalling yards at Tours.
JT: That’s right. I don’t rem — I remember going to the marshalling yards but I don’t know where it was. That’s when I got Jimmy Marlow to try again to get him to look out of the window but he wouldn’t look. He said ‘no fear’.
MC: And then you did the GVC, UVC marshalling yards, you did lots of the marshalling yards?
JT: That’s right. [noise of door closing]
MC: Even Paris, even, your third trip was to Paris.
JT: I don’t remember that.
MC: Marshalling again, marshalling yards.
OTHER: There you go, that was, was that leaflet dropping you were saying you were doing at the time? That’s the one, that‘s the Paris trip.
JT: Paris, yeah.
OTHER: ‘Cos you went from [unclear] Paris and then you went, started, you seemed to go to Germany and Munich.
JT: [unclear]
OTHER: [unclear]
JT: But I was in the Ruhr Valley.
MC: You went to Cologne?
JT: Oh yes and somewhere else, I forget.
MC: Cologne and —
JT: Two or three trips to the Ruhr Valley. Yep, they were always a bit hairy.
MC: Yeah, because of low level defence —
JT: The thing was you’ve got a battery of searchlights and the second you got near to them, the searchlights were on you and you were dodging the searchlights all the way through.
MC: Did you, I mean did you get hit, you never got hit any time by flak?
JT: Sorry?
MC: Did you get hit any time by flak?
JT: I think we did but err, nothing to, well nothing to put us off keeping going.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Although that was, always took the length of the runway. According to the skipper you had to hold it down to make it, take itself off.
MC: It took a while to get off with a full load?
JT: It did yeah.
OTHER: So that would have been, you know especially if you had long trips, with a full fuel load as well.
JT: That’s right he would hold it down to the end of the runway to make it fight to get off, yeah.
OTHER: Is this a —
JT: Poor old Johnny who was in the rear turret was wondering when he was going to leave the deck. [laughter]
MC: Were there many times when you came back —
JT: Yes we did get a recall once.
MC: You had to bring the bomb load back?
JT: . We had to go out to the North Sea, there was a dumping area out in the North Sea, we used to have to go and dump them there and we’d say ‘ah flippin’ heck’. Or sometimes you’d get a hang up with a bomb and in theory you still had to go out to the North Sea but in honesty, disconnect the camera, get rid of it [laughter]. We didn’t do it that way, we did go sometimes but sometimes we didn’t.
MC: What sort of dumping area, you dumped it elsewhere?
JT: We’d just disconnect the camera, pull the toggle and away we’d go [laughter]and put the camera back on [laughter] get a picture of cloud.
MC: Yeah, yeah [laughter] So did you have to bring many bomb loads back did you?
JT: Sorry?
MC: Did you have to bring many loads back or was there —
JT: We never brought one back, only, we dumped one but we never ever brought any back.
MC: Oh you always dumped them?
JT: Yeah, yeah.
MC: What sort of bomb load was it you were carrying?
JT: Probably thousand pounders, [unclear] in cans. Four thousand pounders with cans.
MC: Four thousand.
JT: Four thousand pounders with the cans, well, a load of thousand pounders with the, oh bloody hell what are they called, not flares. Oh I can’t think.
MC: Incendiaries?
JT: What you say?
MC: Incendiaries?
JT: That’s right.
MC: Yeah, yeah and were there many mishaps, did you experience any mishaps?
JT: Pardon?
MC: Did you experience any mishaps at Skellingthorpe while you were there you know?
JT: No we didn’t actually, we didn’t get any hang ups, no.
MC: No, I meant did you have any accidents at Skellingthorpe or anything like that?
JT: Aahh, not that I can recall.
MC: So what did you personally think about the bombing raids then, about the —
JT: I thought they were a great success really.
MC: Yeah. And the morality of it, what did you think about that?
JT: I think Bomber Harris had it right. The only thing was he put a raid on once, I think Winston Churchill insisted and they lost a lot of aircraft that night but err, I thought they did a good job.
MC: Were you on that raid?
JT: No.
OTHER : That would be Nuremburg?
JT: Yep, That’s ninety six or ninety five.
MC: Yeah.
JT: Yeah, well that wasn’t going to go ahead but Churchill insisted that it did and we lost ninety six aircraft that night.
MC: Hmm, yeah.
JT: I mightn’t have been here now. [laughter]
MC: You didn’t do Dresden then?
JT: We’d finished.
MC: What did you think about Dresden then, you were aware of the Dresden raid?
JT: Well, it’s hard to say really. We never had to encounter the problems they had when they got there so we don’t know. I mean they said it was a walkover[?] for them. In fact a pal of mine who was a navigator in another squadron said he didn’t like, he regretted it said he was ashamed of going there but having said that and he came back but some people didn’t so it’s all right talking if you got back. Yeah. That was Ken Boxon, [?] Ken went to Dresden yeah.
MC: So what did you think about the way Harris was treated after the war?
JT: Sorry?
MC: What did you think about the way that Harris was treated after the war?
JT: I thought he had a very despicable treatment. I think for what he did during the war I think it was a crying shame. If it hadn’t been for him Bomber Command wouldn’t have been the force they were, I thought he was great.
MC: Good for Bomber Command.
JT: Absolutely, he was yeah, Butcher Harris. [laughter] But he didn’t get the justice he deserved.
MC: Yeah. And did you get your clasp, Bomber Command Clasp?
JT: Yes.
MC: You did get your clasp?
JT: I don’t think it’s worth a light. Little tiny thing, not worth a light. I don’t know why they bothered to make it to be honest. I think I brought it with me.
BT: In the box is it? Is that the one?
MC: So, yeah you did apply for your clasp and you got it. That’s um —
JT: No it’s not there.
MC: You said there was a lady at the end of the runway. She used to wave you off.
JT: Sure, she did. She came down, she’d wait for us to come back. She was the lady who used to treat us to coffee. She was the lady who gave me coffee that night when they called us in from Lincoln to go on ops.
MC: What was her name?
JT: Mrs Cook.
MC: Mrs Cook.
JT: Mrs Cook. She was a lovely lady and she’d come down and stand at the end of the runway and she would wait until we got back to the air traffic tower. She was lovely, really was.
MC: I suppose there would have been a few people waving you off?
JT: Sorry?
MC: I suppose there would have been a few people waving you off at the end of the runway?
JT: There were, that’s right there were, but she never, she never missed a trip that we were on, no.
MC: So did you mingle with the other crews much during the day?
JT: Well we did obviously but when we to, we had specialist briefing, nav briefing, WOP briefing, pilot briefing, but then, but at night you did OK, I mean we’ve got, if they were in the pub, the same pub as we were we’d mix in there but we never had, we had our own gang.
MC: Were you very conscious of the losses? I mean you know, were you aware of some of the aircraft that didn’t return?
JT: Well, the thing was, the following day there were empty beds. This was it.
BT: Yeah.
JT: That’s when you knew how many had been lost.
MC: Hmm. But it was never you.
JT: No. When you lose five out of eleven that’s a lot of [unclear]. We were, we were always there. We was very lucky.
MC: Is that what you put it down to?
JT: Yeah, it was luck, pure luck.
MC: And the skill of the skipper.
JT: And Dougie Milligan’s skill. Yep, yeah. He was [emphasis] skilful. When he got back he used to get, he got reprimanded once for taking his time coming in to land. He always complied with the instructions [background noise] for landing. Other air traffic come back ‘cos they went before him and they used to play hell about the, but Dougie never did, he always complied with them. [background noise]. The rules of landing. He was a good skipper.
MC: Which contributed to your success.
JT: Oh he did, without a doubt, yeah.
MC: So when you got your medals after the war did you? When did you get, collect your medals, did you apply for them straight away or —
JT: Ah. Did I? I can’t remember now whether in fact they —
MC: So what medals have you got?
JT: I’ve got the France & Germany, the Aircrew Europe, the Victory Medal and another but I don’t know what it is.
BT: Have you got them there John?
JT: They’re there somewhere.
OTHER: They’re in your blazer pocket.
JT: Ahh.
MC: Yeah, I was just asking you know about your medals, what you’ve, when you got them?
JT: I’ve got the Aircrew Medal at the end of it as well. I still put that on.
MC: Yeah. Then you’ll be err, France & Germany Star?
JT: France & Germany.
MC: That’s the one, I think it’s, that’s the one the clasp goes on.
JT: I don’t know, I don’t, didn’t go on, I never put it on anywhere. And then the Aircrew Europe.
MC: Yep.
JT: And then the Victory Medal and then err, I think I’ve forgotten what the other was. There’s certainly four of them. [unclear]
OTHER: No, no.
MC: So when you —
OTHER: They apologised to him.
MC: Talking about America, going back to when you were flying in America.
JT: That’s right.
MC: You say you flew in formation?
JT: Twelve Lancs in formation. Oh we were tight, it was a tight form, I could look out of my Astrodome and see the bloke in the next jar alongside me and we did that in tight formation over America. When we got to Army Air Corps Day the Yanks had three Superforts in formation. They were miles [emphasis] apart, they were absolute bloody rubbish and the commentator said ‘Ladies and gentlemen, don’t you think this is the best bit of formation flying you’ve seen today?’ and he had to apologise for it. Yeah.
MC: You’ve obviously [laughter]
JT: Three miserable bloody Superforts.
MC: You had twelve in tight formation?
JT: Twelve in tight formation.
MC: So you saw a fair bit of America then did you?
JT: Oh yeah we did.
MC: Whereabouts did you get to then?
JT: We started off at New York and Wash —, um, down to down south, oh I forget where it was and then we went to Hollywood, that area and then we went to Texas and we came back to Washington and somewhere else on the coast and then back to err, New York.
MC: So you flew the Lancs across did you?
JT: Oh yeah.
MC: You flew all twelve?
JT: Twelve yeah.
MC: Twelve Lancs across —
JT: That’s right. We stopped off in the middle of the Azores. We had to land in the Azores to refuel.
MC: The Azores?
JT: Yeah. And then we carried on from there to the States and one of our lads nearly wrote the Reception Committee off. He came up too tightly on the front and he had to pull up and the Reception Committee were lying on the deck [laughter] yeah.
MC: You got a good welcome from the Americans then?
JT: We got a wonderful, wonderful welcome, incredible. Really did. But err, I wouldn’t have liked to stay there. Having been born there I wouldn’t go back there, no, no.
MC: Yeah, well, whereabouts were you born?
JT: Helena, Montana.
MC: You did say, yes.
JT: That’s right, yeah. [pause]
BT: We’ve been over there.
JT: Ken and Al have taken me back there and Beryl —
BT: And me.
JT: All the four of us went. They took us over there.
MC: You [unclear] you back yeah.
JT: When did we go?
OTHER: We went on your 80th.
OTHER: Yeah, yep, just as, well I’ll tell you when it was because we stood under the Twin Towers and three months later they weren’t there.
JT: That’s right.
OTHER: They were —
BT: That’s right.
JT: We beat a path between the Twin Towers.
MC: What’s this?
JT: Flying Fortress, fifty thousand feet, bags of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb.
[laughter]
OTHER: That’s what they said about the Yanks because they were flying so high [unclear]
JT: [unclear] little tiny bomb and we had a four thousand pounder on and a load of ammo. [laughter] In fact we took a crew one night with us and they couldn’t believe it before we got off and where we were going how much bomb, how many bombs we’d got on board. They could not believe it. They did just one trip with us, only one, that was it.
MC: This was on an operation was it, you took a —
JT: Oh yeah.
MC: You took an American —
JT: Took the Yanks one night, I think we took three of the crew [sound of door closing] on the rear gun, one by the skip and one alongside the nav and me. They couldn’t believe where we were going and what load we’d got on. Yeah.
MC: Amazing. ‘Cos they, they didn’t have such a big bomb load.
JT: Well that’s where this little song came from ‘Fly fly a fortress, fifty thousand feet, bags of ammunition and a teeny weeny bomb’ [laughter]
MC: You did two spells at EHB, that was your, wireless operator?
JT: Wireless operator, yeah.
MC: Yeah.
JT: We went from Blackpool to EHB and then we went back for a refresher later on when I’d done my gunnery course, yeah. EHB.
MC: So at that time, there was, what was the living accommodation?
JT: When I went the first time I was an AC2, when I went back the second time I was a sergeant. [laughter] Different approach altogether.
MC: Absolutely yeah. Well thank you very much John for your time.
JT: It’s been a pleasure
MC: Some interesting stories and err, —
JT: It’s nice to talk to you.
MC: and it’s been great talking to you [emphasis].
JT: Thank you very much.
MC: Thank you very much.
JT: It’s a pleasure.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with John TaitCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceMike ConnockPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-10RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:42:42 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextATaitJT160610Conforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewDescriptionAn account of the resourceJohn Tait was prompted to join the Royal Air Force, as he was American by birth and therefore he had to report to the police station once a month because he was considered an ‘alien’. He was a wireless operator and gunner, flying in Ansons, Wellingtons, Stirlings and Lancasters. He was based at RAF Skellingthorpe, enjoying the social life in and around Lincoln, flying bombing operations over the Ruhr Valley as well as various marshalling yards in France. At the end of the war he joined 35 Squadron who flew Lancasters in formation both in the UK and the USA. He was on the first aircraft that was allowed to fly over the White House after the war.
CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.FranceGermanyGreat BritainWalesEngland--LeicestershireEngland--LincolnshireGermany--Ruhr RegionWales--BridgendContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceTina James35 Squadron50 SquadronaircrewAnsonbombingentertainmentLancastermilitary living conditionsoperational training unitRAF BruntingthorpeRAF ScamptonRAF SkellingthorpeRAF Stormy DownStirlingtrainingWellingtonwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/354/3526/PWorsdaleE1701.1.jpge8d8cddb114b6f59dc3b6014cf8ba83dhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/354/3526/AWorsdaleE170708.2.mp35533818d52e1491124984b40177b2e44Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWorsdale, EddieE WorsdaleDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Eddie Worsdale (412919 Royal New Zealand Air Force).PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-07-08RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWorsdale, EDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAWorsdaleE170708PWorsdaleE1701TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Eddie WorsdaleRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:33:39 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending OH transcriptionPending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceMiriam SharlandDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-07-08DescriptionAn account of the resourceEddie Worsdale was a wireless operator/ air gunner and flew operations with 75 Squadron.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandRoyal New Zealand Air Force75 Squadronair gunneraircrewwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/352/3523/AWoodhouseRM151001.2.mp39305bce62fb9f1fae39850e860037e67Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWoodhouse, RobertRobert Michael WoodhouseRobert M WoodhouseR M WoodhouseR WoodhouseDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Robert Woodhouse (1836194 Royal Air Force). He flew operations a wireless operator / air gunner with 207 and 617 Squadrons.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-10-01RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWoodhouse, RMTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentHH: Ok. Today is the 1st of October 2015 and I am Heather Hughes and I am sitting here talking to a Bomber Command veteran Robert Woodward, who has come all the way —
RW: Woodhouse.
HH: Woodhouse, sorry. Who’s come all the way from South Africa to attend the unveiling of the Spire tomorrow and who has kindly agreed to do an interview with us today. Thank you so much Robert.
RW: Ok.
HH: For agreeing to, to do this with us.
RW: Pleasure.
HH: I wonder if we could start by asking you just to talk about your early life in Wales?
RW: I will do, yes. Gladly. Well, I was born on the 16th of March 1925 and I lived in a place in South West Wales called Pembroke Dock which was a garrison town. Famous for the navy, the air force in particular — Flying Boats, and the dockyard. We naturally became, when the Second World War started a sitting target for the German bombers. And we were raided many times. At one time we were sixth of thirty continuous nights when the oil tanks that fed the naval submarines were bombed and they burned for, as far as I can remember, twenty one days and nights. We were bombed out and my father who was a hairdresser, decided to move to Cardiff which we did in the end of 1941. I went to school in Pembroke Dock. And my cousin Ronnie who had lost his father in normal circumstances and his mother used to stay with us when he was on leave. He was a boy entrant in the RAF and because of all this I became very, very interested in the air force and wanted to become a boy entrant myself. This didn’t happen. The war started in 1939. When we moved to Cardiff I joined the local boys ATC. Number 1344 Squadron. And in October 1942 I volunteered for aircrew. I think at seventeen years of age. Yes. Seventeen years of age in October. And some months later, having been accepted and I joined the RAF and went to, for kitting out into Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. I remember the day very well, right. Having said that we were issued with our flying clothing before we even saw an aircraft. Because everyone that volunteered seemed to want to become a pilot they were, if I can put it this way, overbooked. Right. And anyway pilots, navigators and bomb aimers were trained out of the country. Usually Canada or South Africa or wherever. Right. And because I was keen I was persuaded by the interviewer who was ex-First World War to accept an appointment as a wireless operator. He said you only, you would be in the air force quickly and that was about it. Anyway, this I did, right, and eventually my radio school was at Madley in Hereford. If I remember correctly Number 4 Radio School. Lasted plus or minus six months and we began flying after about, I think it was six weeks. Something like that. Maybe twelve weeks. The course had been reduced to six months because previously wireless operators had to do a ground stint at local radio RAF stations. This didn’t happen for me. I was accepted straight away because it was now reduced to six months. My Morse was exceptional. I say it myself. My Morse code.
HH: Fantastic.
RW: I had an aptitude for, for this. Anyway, we went and then when we were finished the course we received our sergeant’s stripes. And the majority, there was about a hundred on the course, the majority were dealt with and posted elsewhere on an alphabetical basis. Being Woodhouse, I was at the tail end of the last eight that were sent on a three month gunnery course which was exceptional but helped, I think, to preserve my stay before getting to a squadron by about plus or minus three months. That’s what I worked out since. Having said all that the next posting was to, I went, the gunnery course was in Scotland at a place called Evanton. E V A N T O N. Number 8 Gunnery School. And we were then sent to Halfpenny Green which was near Wolverhampton and we went on an advanced course for radio operators and navigators only. I came across, if you’re interested, I came across a colleague that I had known and got friendly with in, in London at Lord’s Cricket Ground and he was flying in the same aircraft. An Anson. And he said, ‘Look I’ve been here a bit longer and they’re just going to ground me because I was suffering from air sickness. But can I can I fly with you guys? You know, for the three hours flight to see if I’ve got over it.’ We all agreed but unfortunately he was ill and that was the end of that. Right. We then moved on to Operational Training Unit. Number 14 OTU at Market Harborough. Another famous OTU. It’s where Guy Gibson did his OTU and so we had all of this to think about, I suppose. And if I remember correctly the course lasted something like three months. We flew in Wellingtons and this is where we were crewed up. We met what was to be our future crew. Right. And I remember being in a big room, something like where I’m sitting now and all aircrew milling around. And we were speaking to one another and chose. And a fellow came up to me and said he was a rear gunner and he said, ‘Would you like to join us?’ He said, ‘I’ve already crewed up,’ with so and so, so and so. And I said, ‘Well, what’s your name?’ He said, ‘Moore.’ M O O R E. Well, I said, ‘Oh well, fair enough. My sister just got married to a naval guy whose name was Moore so I’ll make up the number.’ And that’s the way we chose. The rear gunner was Moore. The bomb aimer was Andre Moore. The pilot was Tom Moore. And Bob Woodhouse was Robert Moore. And that’s how we got together. At the end of the course we were interviewed by the wing commander or squadron leader flying and he said, ‘Look. You guys have all done so well, right. Two of you are being recommended for commissions but we can’t give it to you at this station. You get it at your next station.’ Right. And he said Robert Woodhouse and Andre Moore. Right. He then went on to say, ‘Look it’s up to you but you know all aircrew have to volunteer again,’ and he said, ‘We want to recommend your crew for Pathfinders. To go direct to Warboys in Cambridgeshire,’ which was training Pathfinders. We, at that time, I qualify this, we all agreed that this was so but he said, ‘You are all, you’re going straight to a squadron for training at Warboys.’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Anyway, for whatever reason our navigator was sick the next day and we had to find another navigator. So, we don’t know. I can’t add to that but this actually happened and cancelled our stay. Our going to Warboys. Which may well have been a good thing. We were sent temporarily to Balderton which is in Lincolnshire. And it, it was several squadrons there, two squadrons there and — until we got a new navigator. And I cannot recall exactly when this happened. May have been a couple of weeks. It may have been a month. I can’t recall. But they were flying operations from Balderton. We didn’t fly in them. But I remember seeing, the first time I came into contact with something that was a little frightening was there was a Lancaster which was there which we were quite nearby, right and they were hosing out the rear turret from the operation the previous night. That’s what I remember. Anyway, from there we went to Wigsley with a, which was a Conversion Unit from Wellingtons onto Lancasters but because we were short of a navigator, we still didn’t have a navigator I invariably ended up flying with different trainee crews or whatever. Right. And one, you may have heard what these were like or not was the chief flying instructor, a squadron leader, Australian — they named an airport after him in Australia, who I flew with once and there was a different crew altogether and well, he was, he used to show you how good the Lancaster was. And I remember he flew over the control tower at Wigsley, right and cut all four engines which was pretty frightening. And the aircraft still stayed up in the sky. These are the basic facts that I remember. I may well enlarge on them a little bit. Right. Ok. But having said that we then went to a squadron — 207 Squadron in 5 Group. Wigsley was in 5 Group and they did have operations. To go back and retrack a little bit. While we were at Wigsley the German fighters used to infiltrate the main bomber streams and end up at the aerodromes, right. Which they did at Wigsley and they bombed the central runway which was put out of action. The bomb aimer and I were very friendly, right and [laughs] over my future crew and he, we used to have an end room. We picked the end room in the Nissen hut where we stayed and the next morning he said, ‘God ,you sleep hard you know?’ He said, ‘Didn’t you hear them last night?’ I said, ‘No. Not at all.’ That was it, right. Anyway, we then went on then to Spilsby on 207 Squadron. The CO was Wing Commander Black. And the chief intelligence officer was Joyce Brotherton. Brotherton [pause] who was much older than any of us and there we are. I had my twentieth birthday on 207 Squadron and we did a few operations. Nothing of real interest, right. Because we had a new navigator and I can’t recall where he came from whether they had had an accident or whatever but he was a Scot and I can’t remember his name. But having said that we had crewed up with an engineer whose name was Robertson and he was trained as a pilot but because it was at the end of the war, coming to the end of the war they weren’t training just engineers but they had a surplus of pilots and they had to volunteer. So they volunteered to fly on the squadron as engineers which he did. Right. And the other thing is he had a car which helped the crew a lot, right. There we are. But the last operation was in April. April to —[pause] April. April 20th, 23rd something like that, right. To Flensburg. And it was going to be a daylight raid and each time we got to the aircraft it was stopped because the weather was bad. Anyway, we eventually took off and we flew out over Skegness and we flew wave high. Wave high. All to get under the radar. There must have been a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty aircraft. Something like that. We, we were due to meet with American fighters too, before we got to the Danish coast and it didn’t happen. But suddenly one of the aircraft on our beam started flashing an Aldis lamp from his whatsthename. Right. So I had to read the Morse code and it was to tell us that our rear door was still open. Right. So that was a funny part. Right. And the rear gunner whatever, had forgotten to lock the door. We didn’t know and we couldn’t use normal voice or anything. So, anyway but when we got to the target and got to bombing height there we had a master bomber in control. I forget his name and he was directing us. Actually we could see we were going to bomb the docks but by that time our, our fighter escort had arrived out from Scotland and there was an air force, an airfield at the top which the, we were firing their guns at that. And then suddenly the cloud did come over but we could still, but see the target. But the, as I said at that time, towards the end of the war, right, see the bombing line had to be strictly accurate. And in no way did this appeared to be the case so it was aborted. And where the [pause] we could see clearly, right, the sea, and there were loads of U-boats coming back because it was a U-boat base as well, right. And they had been recalled and they were going so we dropped our bombs on them. Right. And we didn’t lose one aircraft on that trip.
HH: Gosh.
RW: One aircraft. So I’m told.
HH: That’s quite unusual.
RW: So I’m told. Whether you believe everything I don’t know but one has to remember that at the end of the war you had this thirty year limit as it applied. And anyway we got back and we went on leave straight away. And oh yeah, we came back, right and we screamed over, over Skegness. Right. It must have frightened them because we were so low I tell you and you get a hundred odd aircraft. Anyway, that happened, right. And then after leave we came back and we immediately, oh yes, they, in our absence they had done the raid on, which was the final raid of the war, on Berchtesgaden. Which was sometime at the end of April probably. Early May. Whatever. And that was it and the squadron was laid up and that was it. And then we started doing trips to Operation Dodge to Italy.
HH: To collect prisoners of war.
RW: Well, yeah, we brought back soldiers actually.
HH: Oh soldiers.
RW: We brought. And soldiers. And another one was Pomigliano. Somewhere near the Leaning Tower actually. And brought them back. Right. And yeah, yes and we went to Norfolk and dropped them off there somewhere. So much details I can’t quite remember. Right. And then, oh yes when I got, when we got back, I’m trying to think now and get it right. Ok. Oh it’s a job. You only remember what you want to remember, you know. Anyway that was it. So, right, fair enough I came back off leave. That was it. I was still on 207 Squadron and lo and behold, right I had a message to report to station headquarters who said, ‘Right. Pack your bags but, you have to volunteer but you are going to 617 Squadron.’ So I, and that’s what happened. Right. I didn’t have time to say cheerio to the crew who had gone off on various things. Been on leave. And so I went to 617 Squadron which was, had been or was at Woodhall Spa but was then immediately moved to Washington to err Waddington as the 463 and 467 Australian squadrons had previously been at Waddington. Anyway, we were there in the mess and everything was — by that time I was a flight sergeant, and I became a warrant officer on 617 Squadron. And I remained with 617, the war had just ended, right and for about eleven months. In that time we were the lead squadron for Operation Tiger Force which was going to the Far East to support. Supposedly finish off the war there. Being the lead squadron. I’m told that the ground staff had already sailed in ships. But 617 and 9 Squadrons which we always partnered, right were going to be the sole. We went on to heavy duty low level flying. As you will know 617 Squadron was famous for their part in the dams raid. Various battleships. Ok. The Tirpitz being the top one.
HH: The Tirpitz. Yeah.
RW: But I wasn’t on the squadron at that time. But it was an honour to be chosen to go to the squadron. That’s the way I felt and I enjoyed every minute of it. We had a great time. Anyway, we were, we all got kitted out with overseas clothing and inoculations and what have you. And I remember a funny part was we were lined up irrespective of rank. Whether you were a wing commander, squadron leader or what. But I’m not a very physically big person but, but there was a squadron leader in front of me with his sleeves rolled up where he was getting the jabs and instead of giving you one jab now and again, right they had a system where they’d wind everything in and give you the eight in one go. That is how I remember. Right. The squadron leader just boom [laughs] That was it. He collapsed completely. Not for long but he, there we are. So there we are. That’s the funny side of it.
HH: And you survived fine.
RW: Pardon?
HH: And you survived fine, did you?
RW: Yes. I, yes, I just looked away, you know. But there we are. So, so we did those trips and — sorry yes. We then flew to the Far East. Ok. And we started off, we flew to Tripoli. There was another name for it then. An Italian name. Anyway we had a night there and then went via Cairo West and Idris, sorry Idris was the name of the aerodrome. And then, yeah and we went on and ended up in India. And in the course of our flight we were due to go up to a place called Chittagong which was on the border of Burma and India, as it was then. Right. Whilst flying we were in the first three aircraft going to the Far East. The rest would follow on later. And we were diverted to a place called Digri, in the Bay of Bengal and 9 Squadron was with us. We were diverted to a place called Salboni which was within car distance if you like, you know. So we were soon friendly with them. And we continued to practice bombing. The Americans had been at Digri and Salboni before us and had left the day before. So we had all their rubbish and what have you. Unfortunately our, our radio officer, right, in the squadron who had served with 617 for quite some time and had a lot of experience, right was killed in an accident there. Once we were there. Not flying but on the motorbike. Very very sad, so. He was one of the better types and things like that. Anyway, we then, we were on our, supposedly on our way to Okinawa and the Americans stopped us and they said stay in India. Once we were there we did, again three aircraft did a flying display in New Delhi which was great fun. It was a night flying tattoo kind of thing with searchlights and firing off rocket shells and so forth. And there we are. As I say, I think I, no I didn’t mention it but I think the air force taught us to drink a little bit, you know. And so we had a lot of enjoyment there. And then we flew back. The route we came we flew back and landed in St Mawgan’s in Cornwall. Oh, we were told on, prior to leaving India that we were going on a good will tour, the squadron, to America. This didn’t happen. We got to St Mawgan. We were told, right, leave the aircraft and take everything with you including, including your parachutes and we’ll be in touch. But go home on leave. Which was alright. And I suppose, I suppose it’s only right that the Air Ministry took over the squadron and went on the good will tour [laughs] Something like that happened. Right. There we are and I was recalled to Binbrook, near Grimsby right, where we set up business, if you like as a squadron and [pause] yeah. And from there I was grounded and I got all, they gave you a list of things you wanted to do. And I said, ‘Oh fair enough. Flying control is what I want. Right.’ And I ended up at Wittering in flying control until I was de-mobbed in the winter of 1947. It was a bad winter. I remember the snow. And there we are. Ok. So that’s my air force. Oh yes when, when I, after de-mob I went home to Cardiff. Lived with my parents until I got married at the age of twenty nine. Right. And, but I was in the RAF VR and I joined the local flying school and I flew every weekend without fail. Without uniform. No uniforms. Right. Terrific time for seven years.
HH: And is that how come you had two service numbers?
RW: Yes. Yeah. 2604304 the other one. Yeah. There was. That’s why I have a good memory. Do you want to hear my later life or not.
HH: I definitely do. I think that would be most useful.
RW: It’s ever so boring but would you like to listen?
HH: No. It’s not boring at all.
RW: It’s not, it took us approximately, approximately twenty one months to two years in some cases to get to a squadron from the beginning. So it was a very thorough training. Very thorough. It was very mixed and unfortunately things happened. People went sick or whatever. There we are. Anyway, having got de-mobbed, when I’d left school originally in Pembroke Dock at the age of fifteen, war started. There was no way you could do much. Anyway, I joined a wine and spirit merchants. It was a nice little job but again we were bombed out so we moved on to Cardiff. And there I joined the air force from there but my cousin, who was [pause] had a great influence with me. A boy entrant. Was of exactly that. Right. Flight lieu, later became a flight lieutenant observer. Being a boy entrant himself he had, he’d been in, he was, he was thirty when he was killed on 627 Squadron. 627 Squadron at Woodhall Spa on Pathfinders. A great pity. There we are. But he was the influence of attracting me to the air force and we kept in touch right until he was killed. I would have ended up with him had he survived but there we are. On the same station. But there we are. Right. After the war. I took several courses in, after the war ended. I was very friendly at Waddington with an EVT training officer. Education vocation which they, they tried to interest you in your civilian life. And I actually remember we were very friendly. So he sent me off on several courses and they said, ‘Oh you would do well as a travelling salesman.’ I said, ‘Oh yes,’ you know, and listened to it all. Anyway, I joined the Prudential Assurance Company at Cardiff. I had several interviews. I was accepted. And I stayed with them all my working life. This was in 1947. I became, I was seconded to South Africa and became general manager of the African business. Which was good. I moved a lot. I was, it was like the air force. I never seemed to say no [laughs] And when they said we’d like you to go somewhere. Somewhere, right. I readily agreed. And I was going to South Africa for two years. I’d already been a divisional manager in the UK. And they said. ‘Look. Just for two years, family,’ go and do this. Will you do that? And I’m still in South Africa after forty years. We loved it so much. There we are.
HH: And did you stay in the same job even, even though you didn’t —
RW: Well. Put it this way —
HH: Outstayed your two years.
RW: I, I, yes. The general management. I was in the top job you know so I mean I didn’t have anything to do with life insurance. Everything, all liability insurances. Everything with the household. Motor. What have you. I was in charge of it in Africa. From Nairobi right down to Jo’berg. So fortunately I did well. We got involved with various mergers which I hated. And [pause] but I came out of it alright naturally but the thing is that we did this and I eventually resigned when I was fifty six years of age. I started my own business which was, don’t ask me why, it was madness, right — which was broking. And because I was well known at the time, to be quite frank and other companies, I had a lot, a lot of support and the business did take off. And the result is that when I eventually retired for the final time I was sixty nine — 1994 was it? Yeah. And there were political changes in South Africa and everything. And we still had property. A house in the UK. And we went back there for a while but eventually we returned to South Africa. We had a daughter, son, grandchildren, the lot, which we love and, and I still enjoy it.
HH: So that’s how come you’re still in Fourways.
RW: Yes. That’s right. In Fourways.
HH: So where had you lived before in South Africa?
RW: Ok. We lived in Hyde Park, or Craighall Park, more to the point. Near Hyde Park. Buckingham Avenue. And we had a lovely property there and were very happy. But we went to, when we returned, I always remember where we lived was a place called Cedar Lakes, Broadacres, Fourways and our son lived there. And he was very well educated. He had a PhD and things like this. And we were visiting him for a [unclear] or something or other and I sat under a rondavel on the estate which I subsequently, where we subsequently lived. And I said, ‘Jeremy,’ and I said, ‘I’d better speak to your wife as well. Would you be upset if we came to live on this estate?’ He said he’d be delighted, you know. So the house, bought a house, and that is where we are. And our daughter lives in Bryanston and they have a larger property shall is say and two beautiful grandchildren and everybody’s very very happy.
HH: Well. it’s lovely to be close to family. There’s no point living here if all your family are there.
RW: Well this is it exactly, you know and yes and if I’ve bored you please —
HH: That was a wonderful story. And you’ve kept, how have you kept in touch with, with Bomber Command?
RW: Oh yeah. Not really. We have, it’s [pause] I’m a member of 207 Squadron Association. I’m a member 617 Association but they’re not so well presented if you like with the paperwork there. 207 is exceptional. Somebody there who is the son of somebody who was killed and he took over the secretary’s job and he’s done a marvelous job, so he does keep us up to date. Right. 617 we get notices but obviously, you know, there’s nothing. 617 is a very, how can say, a modern squadron. Right. 617, Tornadoes and what have you. Right. But we used to go, but as I say that’s after that thirty year cycle, right. We had notice and we went to, we had an invite, we lived in Chester at the time and we had an invite to go to Scampton, right, for a presentation of squadron colours. Which was, if my memory is correct was ’59, 1959, our daughter wasn’t born till 1958 so, yeah. I think it was 1959 and that was the first time after the war we got together. We soon knew several who were regulars in the air force there. And then after [pause] sorry my mind’s wandering again. The, yeah, we’re in ‘59 and later on there was a whole Bomber Command reunion. Reunion where Harris was there. And it was at Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. And I remember I didn’t sit at 617. I sat with 207 Squadron. And I did know two people who have since died. But other than that we have had no contact at all.
HH: And Harris also went to Southern Africa didn’t he?
RW: Who?
HH: Harris.
RW: Oh yeah. Well he was Rhodesian.
HH: Yeah.
RW: And do you know where he stayed? He lived actually. The Mount Nelson Hotel. One thing I can maybe offer at this point, one thing I do not understand is he had children. Young children. I couldn’t understand this because he was in his 40s when operational. So I don’t know whether, nothing has ever been said about family or wife or anything, but yes. He had a, yeah if everything I read is, or read is correct then he is treated badly. But there, that’s nature of things you know.
HH: Yeah.
RW: Any direct questions?
HH: You have given us a lovely story and thank you so much for that.
RW: No.
HH: I think you deserve a drink in the Dambusters now.
RW: Yeah. I used to enjoy going, oh sorry we went to one or two, quite a few before I went back to South Africa. We went to the reunions at the Petwood which we enjoyed very much and everything. But I didn’t operate with 617. I was operational but not war time.
HH: Yeah.
RW: Ok.
HH: 617, yeah.
RW: With 617. Get my facts straight, you know. But again the more you read about things and if you read them and a very good friend of mine who was never aircrew but very very interested in everything and he, he went right through and he always enlarged things. And in fact, I’m a bit cross because, not for this but I had the, when we went to 617 they still had the clapper aircraft. Are you familiar with the clapper? Before the big bomber one. And again to be edited is whether we were told, my memories of [unclear] were told I’m not so sure or whether I read it. Right, but those aircraft had to be disposed of quickly because 617, so I was led to believe, right, to be listed as war criminals if the war hadn’t ended. That’s why they had two different identifications. KC and AJ was the — you know all this don’t you? Eh?
HH: Well it’s interesting to hear it from you. Yeah.
RW: Yeah. But the other time is very of interest which is worth researching was when we were in India the wars were over. Right. The Jap war had just finished and we had stopped. Well, again, aircraft were bombed up ready to fly over the Indian fleet which had mutinied in 1946. The beginning of 1946. Whether that’s true but my memory. You have no recollection?
HH: Sounds worth following up.
RW: And again it goes on , you see. Prompt things. I tried to research that because I thought well was it true or did I imagine it? But we weren’t involved. We were involved with flying with the squadron but not, but one aircraft supposedly flew over the destroyers or whatever the navy. Somewhere near Bombay and a white flag went up. But nothing happened. But that, tell me if my memory is playing. When I came, apart from all of this, when I was on the Number 3 Flying School in Cardiff, right, after the war, I really, that was great. Absolutely. Every weekend. I loved it.
HH: Sounds wonderful.
RW: Having said that I still had to do so many flights away from Cardiff and I went twice, I think to Lyneham. Transport Command. And flew out with the crew to somewhere, all right. It was a holiday for me and they picked me up on the way back. And then yeah. That’s where I lost my logbook.
HH: Oh you lost your logbook.
RW: I left it at Lyneham. I left it at Lyneham to be written up because we got back on a Saturday. Everything was closed. That’s the last I saw of it. But there —
HH: Do you know what ever happened to it?
RW: No. No. Just there amongst a lot of paper. Anyway.
HH: Thank you so much for your interview. That was a real treat to listen to your story. Thank you so much.
RW: I don’t. But wartime is, you know full but that’s alright. Later on. Many years after the war ended we had young children and we had a caravan towed and one of our many trips was to Italy. Italy? Yeah. And it was called in Venice Audi and SU Holiday Camp. The German company had provided their staff with a holiday. Anyway we went there and being German everything was precision. You lined your caravan up etcetera and right opposite us was a German family. And then, we both had young children so he invited us for a drink and we accepted. And having said this he brought up the war, you know and all this, ‘What did you do?’ And every time he was having swig he’d slap you on the back, you know. And I said, you know, he was an ex-U- boat commander. And it turned out he was in one of the U-boats where we dropped our, on our last trip.
HH: Isn’t that extraordinary?
RW: Yeah. Yeah. And he worked for the German Motor Company.
HH: That you should have met up in that context.
RW: Yeah.
HH: After the war.
RW: Yeah. There we are. I might have glossed over a little bit. Please edit it as you see fit.
HH: Thank you so much for that.
RW: Right then.
[recording paused]
RW: But what I would say about medals is I am quite anti because of the attitude after the war ended of the politicians regarding the recognizing, the proper recognition. The proper recognition of Bomber Command which, as to ending the war early. Right. The, I’m also anti the medals situation because in my case I am entitled I suppose to maybe three or, or mainly three medals which would be the end of the war, the defence and the France and Germany medal. I’m not so sure I’m entitled to the 1939 ’45 because you had to be, if my memory serves me correct, a minimum of three months on a squadron but you could finish your operations and be gone. You know, so you could die in your first raid but so I’ve never bothered to apply. And that’s still the position. Thank you.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAWoodhouseRM151001TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Robert WoodhouseRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:50:11 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewPending revision of transcriptionCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceHeather HughesDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-10-01DescriptionAn account of the resourceRobert Woodhouse was living in Pembroke Dock when the bombing of the town began. The family relocated to Cardiff when they lost their home in the bombing. In Cardiff Robert joined the Air Training Corps. He had a cousin who had already joined the RAF as a boy entrant and he wanted to follow in his footsteps. He volunteered and began training as a wireless operator. He was posted to 207 Squadron at RAF Wigsley. A German aircraft infiltrated the bomber stream after a raid and was able to bomb the runway thus putting it out of action. The squadron moved to RAF Spilsby and continued operations. The crew had been told by the commanding officer that they had been recommended for Pathfinders but the navigator became ill and the move was cancelled. With his squadron John took part in Operation Dodge. Also on one operation that was aborted John recalled that when they were flying home they dropped their bombs on U-boats heading to their pens. Much later after the war he was on holiday with his family and became friendly with the German family in the next caravan. It transpired that the father had actually been the commander of one of the U-boats that they had attacked. CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainSouth AfricaEngland--LincolnshireEngland--NottinghamshireContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.193919411942194519461947207 Squadron617 SquadronaircrewbombingOperation Dodge (1945)RAF SpilsbyRAF WigsleyTiger forcewireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/351/3522/AWoodardP160512.1.mp3676f65ec3a4b2d9e7d1226df655c32cfDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWoodard, PeterPeter Rowlands WoodardPeter R WoodardP R WoodardP WoodardDescriptionAn account of the resourceSix items. One oral history interview with Peter Rowlands Woodard (b. 1924, 1810707 Royal Air Force), photographs, a warrant certificate and a note of operations carried out by H R Woodard. He was a wireless operator and flew operations with 192 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation byPeter Rowlands Woodard and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-05-12RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWoodard, PRTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentCB: My name is Chris Brockbank and I’m in St Alban’s today on the 12th May 2016 with Peter Woodard and his wife Irene and Peter was a wireless operator, signaller and I’m going to ask him to talk about his life starting with his earliest recollections that he has. Peter.
PW: As regards when, where I was born.
CB: Yeah.
PW: Well I was born of course in Banbury in Suffolk and had a twin, the youngest of twins, because my twin brother Howard he was always climbing in seniority by arriving twenty four, twenty minutes before I did [laughs] and then of course we went to the local Catholic school because my father was Catholic so and we were christened Catholics but my mother was Protestant, but she had agreed of course to bring us up in the Catholic faith. And from then on of course I went to the ordinary school at Banbury and then we moved to Beccles for a while and then from Beccles we moved back to Banbury and then on to Colchester. My father was a bit of a wanderer alright he was in the print trade and of course he became a printer’s leader and then he we moved from there to Tunbridge in Kent and from Tunbridge in Kent we moved to St Albans and then of course along came the war. My father was a, he was a bit of a wanderer anyway but he, he for some reason or other joined the army again, course he was in the signals regiment, signals corps in the first World War and of course he re-joined and it became the Royal Corps Signals then when he was in it. And being an old man, as he was, he got himself a nice cushy job at Eastern Command Headquarters that was at Luton Hoo and he has his hands, he was a wireless man, he had his own little wireless cabin at Luton Hoo and he stayed there until the war finished and other than that he was as I say in the print trade. And of course my mother was in the print trade too she was in the book binding department and that’s how I came to follow the print trade in a way, just successive and of course I was apprenticed at the, with the [inaudible] publishers and suppliers limited, Campfield Press in St Albans that’s how I became a book binder. Of course then I was in the air training corps and of course when the war was on I then went into the RAF and I was on deferred service for a while before I entered and then went up to Lords Cricket ground for air crew receiving centre, then from then on I went off to radio school and I was at Yatesbury number two radio school I think it was, Yatesbury in Wiltshire and then of course from there I went on to Dumfries, when did I first start flying, I’ve got my log book here so it’s easy enough to find, my first trip was in 1943, in September 1943 in Adomally doing radio transmitting tuning and receiving and all that sort of thing, that was in 1943 and then at the end of 1943 I then moved from Yatesbury to where are we, oh, air crew, operational auxiliary flying unit OAFU they called it at Dumfries and flew there in Andersons and that was in March, no April 1944 until the end of May 1944, no not the end of May, yes it was yes, then I moved to Edge Hill which was satellite which was OTU and part of Chipping Warden actually and that’s when I crewed up with Flight Lieutenant Fawkes who became my pilot and by then my flying hours had gone on to sixty nine to seventy hours day light and forty-five hours night time. Then of course from then on I went to, still at Chipping Warden with Flight Lieutenant Fawkes doing our OTU training and we finished there August 1944. Then we came Chipping Warden, by then we were crew you see, Wellington crew so that was pilot, navigator bomb aimer and wireless operator by then and we flew from [unclear] squadron at Fulsham until 1945 was it 1945, 1944 rather yes 1944 flying from Fulsham then all the time until we did our first special duty operation on October 1944 doing special duty ops up and down the Dutch coast and carried on doing that sort of thing the French/German border in 1944 October, still October yes. There we are and then we got, still doing special operations on the Dutch coast and the first one, that’s in 1944 too, our first one [pause] first operation was 18th of February 1945. By then my skipper was squadron leader and our first operation was to Rehiene a 3 30 trip three hours thirty night time and Dortmund the next one was Dortmund then Dortmund again on the Danish coast rather, and , like I said my skipper then was now OC of A flight 192 Squadron, and then of course he then started signing my log books as the squadron made the OCA flight, then in 1945 March 1945 we were special operation [unclear] Frankfurt, Hannover and stayed in Germany all in Germany until the end of March no, Heligavan was in April 1945 then the last one we did operation of the war, I think it was the last operation of the war too, special duty operation to Flensburg that was in north Germany wasn’t it, yes that’s right up in the north of Germany yes, and then it was certified that we completed a first tour of operations [unclear] signed by Wind Commander Donaldson and then 102 Squadron Pocklington. I was then left Foulsham and being that much younger than the rest of the crew I was sent up to Pocklington and so I left the crew and Ben, I always remember Ben saying when you get up there, don’t forget, when it’s all over and done with, we shall, I’m going to insist that we meet at least once a year and that was very good of him and he did, he made sure we did, we didn’t miss a year at all. One year we, he had business in France and we all went over to Paris on the strength of his company which was very good [laughs]. Anyway, Pocklington, that’s right, Pocklington, I was with a Flight Sergeant Sandham who was a pilot and the crew there and we did a real cross country taking the ground staff to see the havoc over in Germany. And then that was with Pilot Officer Sandham. Then we moved to [unclear] and transfer, 102 Squadron it was then and we transferred to Liberator’s, troop carrying and we did that training until October, the end of October, and then in November we were doing the conversion still on Liberator’s but the pilot I had then was Pilot Officer West who had come straight from America where he had done his training so he, in fact I was the only member of the crew in transport command I was , had a completed tour of ops, I had a real raw crew, 102 Squadron Leader [unclear] that’s right Pilot Officer West and then we used to go backwards and forwards to India, that was in December 1945. We used to go base to Castle Benito, Castle Benito and then on to India that was the short-term on Liberator’s. Castle Benito, Cairo West Cairo West, Shairo, Cairo West, Shairo, Maripau that was the route we used to take. We were taking personnel out to India and then bringing some back. The whole bomb bay was sealed and had seats in the middle and some of the Liberators I wasn’t up on the flight deck I had a cabin on my own halfway down the aircraft and so to get to it I had to go through the bomb bay where the guests were sitting you know and of course I used to threaten them if I get any trouble I’ll get them to pull a [unclear] to let you out [laughs] which tended to amuse them a bit. They were mostly army people. We had one officer there and he said “God”, he said ‘I’ve gone across Egypt and the desert in a tank and one thing and another’, he said ‘but I’ve never felt as bad as this I tell you’ and he was really ill, he got sickness alright. So that was, carried on with 53 Squadron unwards on the India routes yes, [inaudible] to upward Eastray, Eastray to Castro ,Benito Castro Benito to Cairo West to Maripau and back it was a really interesting time and that went on until 1946 then. Yes April 1946, Lidda, Maripau, [unclear] with 53 squadron upward. In fact I did more distances flying then than I’ve ever done before backwards and forwards to India, Maripau, Shariba seven hours. It was coming back that was the main thing and of course that was the finish of my flying with with the RAF I came out of the RAF then and of course started flying again in 1951 and 1946 when I was in the reserve had to do reserve flying in Panshanger, that was handy that, that was flying in Andersons then and the pilots were citizen pilots. Mr Stewart, Mr Brown and Mr Snowden, Mr Snow and so on [laughs] [pause] and that went on until oh I did a stint at the reserve flying school at Cambridge and of course I was just in reserve then you see [pause] 22 reserve flying school, that would finish my flying with the Air Force then, that was on the 24th January 1954 [pause] and then of course the skipper was true to his word and every year we used to go on to a in the end there were only three of us, the skipper, wireless operator and the navigator and that’s when we had our annual trips [laughs] when we all went out, this in in Ben’s house, at .
IW: Look it up, would it be on there?
PW: Yes I was sitting in Ben’s house there [laughs]. That’s the same one isn’t it yeah [pause] in the New Forest he had a place down in the New Forest [pause].
CB: So every year you got back together?
PW: We did.
CB: In different places?
PW: Oh no, we, we, we used to go the New Forest, well for start off the first reunion was at , on the East Coast [pause].
CB: Okay, well we can look that up.
PW: Yeah, I can’t remember that now, and then after that we had a reunion in Blackpool.
CB: Hmm.
PW: Yep had a reunion in Blackpool. It was the Butlins, the Butlins we went to on the Norfolk Coast, what the heck.
CB: Cromer was it or somewhere like that?
PW: Hmm.
CB: Was it Cromer or somewhere like that?
PW: No, before you get to Cromer.
CB: Hunstanton?
PW: No, no it was right on the coast it was a Butlin’s holiday camp.
CB: Anyway we’ll look that up.
PW: And from then of course we used to have a reunion every year and Ben made sure that we got, in the end there was Ben the Skipper, Jock, Jock Scot, the navigator and myself, even the rear gunner he couldn’t make it any more, course he’s, as I say they were all ten years older than me anyway.
CB: Yes.
AW: I was still the boy.
CB: Yeah.
AW: [laughs] They called me the boy all the time.
CB: So what was it like flying in a crew where you were that much younger than them because they on balance were much older than most crews anyway?
PW: Well yeah , because they’d both been instructors, Ben as skipper was a teaching pilot, it was in his log book.
CB: Yeah
PW: Down there where he was teaching people to fly and Ken Scott the navigator he was the same he was teaching navigation and I think they both decided they wanted to see something of some action before it all ended and of course that’s when they decided to join up and it was at the OTU that Ben approached me, he was tall a six foot chap, and he introduced himself as Flight Lieutenant Faulkes, ‘would you like to be my wireless operator’ so I looked and I liked the look of him and the way he approached and it was all good, because we all used to gather in a hangar you know for this selection crew, crew selection and it worked you know, it was marvellous there was group of signallers, air gunners or WOP AG’s as I used to call them navigators, rear gunners and bomb aimers, that’s all we did, not flying engineers then because we were still on.
CB: Still on Wellington’s.
PW: Twins, hmm. So he approached me and he said ‘would you like to move on to as a wireless operator’ so I said yes sure and we gelled straight away and when we crewed up and the bomb aimer was Canadian.
CB: What was his name?
PW: Morgan, and trying to think of his name.
IW: Danny Hutchings.
PW: Hmm?
IW: Danny Hutchings.
PW: No, no that wasn’t his name he was with transport command.
IW: Oh I beg your pardon.
PW: This was when we crewed up originally and that’s it of course we had a mid-upper gun turret on the Halifax’s and on the Wellington, was there one on the Wellington, I can’t remember now.
CB: Not normally, no front and .rear
PW: Yeah, hmm, so.
CB: So it was a crew of six?
PW: Yeah, Hmm.
CB: Right, so this interaction between you as a boy and the others they were constantly ribbing you were they?
PW: Oh no, not really, I just looked on the skipper as a father figure, I mean he was so, so good to me really, I just had complete faith in him and in the navigator, I never felt queasy about any trip I went on with them at all.
CB: No. That’s when you were at OTU, how did , did Ben Faulkes look out all the other members of the crew or how did that work? Was he the instigator of the crew?
PW: As an OTU at Wellington we’d just had the.
CB: But in this milling around in the hangar, how did he go around looking for people?
PW: He came to me when he had already got to know Ken Scott.
CB: Right.
PW: Who was a man from Edinburgh, in fact he was a customs and excise chap in a brewery
CB: [laughs]
PW: And he’d tell us some tales about that when we used to have or reunions. He used to bring a case full of what he called a case of wee heavies, it was that strong isle stuff [laughs] he used to bring that in a big case to wherever we were having a reunion, at Filey, Filey in Yorkshire.
CB: Yep.
PW: We had some great fun there and of course we had the flight engineer eventually.
CB: That was at the HCU so where was your heavy conversion unit?
PW: we did heavy conversion on squadron.
CB: Oh did you, right.
PW: Hmm, we didn’t go to a heavy conversion unit.
CB: Right, do you know why that was?
PW: We converted from.
CB: Straight onto what? Lancaster’s?
PW: Halifax.
CB: Halifax, ok.
PW: Yes the squadron was a flight of Wellington’s and then a flight of Halifax.
CB: Hmm.
PW: And then a Mosquito and then a single Lockead attachment from the American Air Force, that was the 192 Squadron and of course they done away with the Wellington in the end.
CB: Yeah.
PW: And we converted to the Halifax on the squadron.
CB: Right.
PW: So when Ben was first Flight Commander we were on Wellington’s.
CB: Oh were you.
PW: And he was Flight Commander on Halifax’s.
CB: Where did the Flight Engineer come from?
PW: I don’t know where he came from.
CB: What was his name?
PW: He was commissioned man when he first came.
CB: As was the pilot?
PW: Yeah and the navigator was of course was commissioned, and the rear gunner he became, he got commissioned as well and so I was the only NCR in the squad, in the crew in the end, but , of course I was ten years younger.
CB: In the Wellington, in the Wellington you’re talking about.
PW: Yeah and the Halifax.
CB: And the Halifax. Right.
PW: Hmm, yeah and the Halifax, of course I , they put me up for commission and I had the interview with the CO, Donaldson, remember Donaldson don’t you? And he considered I was too young for a commission [laughs] and so that was it, I didn’t get the commission.
CB: Strange.
PW: So I was, I was myself, I was the only non-commissioned officer in the crew.
CB: Where did the bomb aimer come from?
PW: I can’t think where Ted came from, no not Ted, , yes he was a Canadian fella, he was an officer he was commissioned, he was Canadian [pause]
CB: Okay.
PW: He lived in the, what’s the big waterfall in Canada?
CB: The big what?
PW: The waterfall.
CB: Niagra Falls.
PW: Niagra.
CB: Right
PW: Yes he came from the Canadian side of Niagra.
CB: Now going back to your earlier times.
PW: Yeah.
CB: You were a wireless operator air gunner, did you do gunnery training?
PW: Yes I did gunnery training.
CB: And where did you do that?
PW: That was at Walney Island.
CB: Walney Island. So you did that after Yatesbury?
PW: Yes, yes.
CB: Okay, at Walney Island.
PW: Yes we went to Walney Island at some radio school
CB: Right.
PW: To get the air gunners certificate
CB: And from there you went to Dumfries?
PW: Dumfries, yeah, operation, Auxilliary Flying Unit they called it.
CB: Yeah. So what were you doing in the Auxilliary flying unit?
PW: We were just flying Andersons.
CB: Yeah but as a signaller or as a gunner?
PW: Well both, I was a signaller and a gunner.
CB: So it had a turret did it?
PW: We had to go, we had an aircraft tow and a drove and we had to fire at the drove and that was the gunnery school, I didn’t do any gunning, what was is, let me find my log book, oh I forget now what it said there. [pause] Is it in here?
CB: Okay, well we can look in the log book in a minute.
PW: Oh yes that’s the wireless operator, that was the Liberator that was.
CB: Right, so when you were at the OTU, you’ve crewed up so what did you do while you were at the OTU then Peter?
PW: AFU?
CB: At the OTU, at the Operational Training /unit.
PW: OTU?
CB: What were you doing there mainly?
PW: Well, well.
CB: You were working as a signaller at the OUT?
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: Or as a gunner or both?
PW: I was , I was doing wireless operator.
CB: Yeah.
PW: Didn’t do any gunning. Chipping Warden that was.
CB: Yeah, so what were you doing at the OUT as a wireless operator, what was your task?
PW: Just operating the, the radio equipment.
CB: Yeah but why was the radio needing to be operated, what was happening?
PW: Nothing really, I was just on cross countries and that was all.
CB: So you were flying across country, are messages coming into you or are you sending them out, what is happening?
PW: Yes, in the main it was radio silence, if the navigator wanted a fix I’d give it on the loop system.
CB: Right.
PW: Three or four stations, I gave him the time and where it was coming from and he’d get his positions from that.
CB: Right, so just explaining that, you’re tuning into a radio station.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Having tuned in you are then taking a bearing from the radio station.
PW: That’s right, yeah.
CB: Then you go to another radio station and you take a bearing from that is that right?
PW: That’s right.
CB: And you do a third one at least and that gives you the triangulation as they call it, is that right.
PW: So the navigator could plot where he should be.
CB: So you have to be quite quick.
PW: Oh yeah, hmm.
CB: Do you log the time between each tuning in?
PW: Yes well I didn’t have a log of course I just passed to the navigator straight away. Well he’d be sitting quite close.
CB: So how long did it take to tune in and get a fix as it were?
PW: [pause] I can’t remember.
CB: The reason I ask the question is that if the plane is moving and so he has to take account of that.
PW: That’s right yeah, hmm.
CB: In time.
PW: The speed, air speed and the wind direction [laughs].
CB: And how did you decide which station to take the bearing from?
PW: Well, you had various stations en-route you know and they would radio and say can you get a fix from so and so.
CB: These were civilian radio stations that you were using were they or beacons?
PW: No, no, no I don’t, [pause] they, were automatic I think.
CB: Ah beacons that are set up. Right, okay.
PW: You didn’t have to speak to anybody or anything like that.
CB: No, no.
PW: [unclear]
CB: So in essence what we’re describing is that, you’re listening out with your loop on the top of the aircraft?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You tune into a radio transmission and you then plot the bearing of that from the aircraft?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You pass that to the navigator with the time at which you took it?
PW: Yeah.
CB: You then go to the next one and give him the bearing is that right? Of the next one and give him the time you took it, is that right?
PW: Yeah.
CB: Did you do more than 3? Or was 3 enough for him to get.
PW: 3 was enough as a rule.
CB: Right. So you were needed to do it quite quickly did you?
PW: I can’t remember how fast I was going anyway [laughs]. No it wasn’t too quick I just used to give him the bearing that’s all.
CB: So when you weren’t doing that you were listening in.
PW: Yeah.
CB: And what were you listening in for?
PW: Well there was an what do you call it, a special frequency.
CB: Yep.
PW: Just 2 initials it was, I can’t think of it now.
CB: Right.
PW: I can’t think of it now, and then pass that on to the navigator.
CB: So what were you listening for?
PW: Just a signal that sounds like a, it was usually two digits, dah-di-dah-di-dah or something like that, 2 initials. They were broadcasting all the time.
CB: That’s what I mean, what were they broadcasting? Are they just broadcasting dot dash Morse code in other words?
PW: Morse code, yes.
CB: Or are they sending you a message.
PW: No just Morse Code, just Morse code signals.
CB: So was that at particular interval or was it a regular transmission that they were making?
PW: I think it’s a regular thing.
CB: Right.
PW: Hmm.
CB: Ok.
PW: Because there was someone there all the time.
CB: Because some signallers have said to me that on the half hour they had to listen to something.
PW: Yeah.
CB: This is when they’re on ops.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Ok, so anyway when you’re doing the cross country you’re trying to help with the navigation?
PW: That’s right.
CB: So then you changed to the heavy conversion unit onto Halifax’s?
PW: Yeah.
CB: How different is your role on the Halifax from on the Wellington?
PW: More or less the same, in our Halifax the rest position was taken up with the secret equipment.
CB: Right.
PW: Well I didn’t know anything about because I was just a straight wireless operator but we had a special operator who was usually a commissioned type and he had all his gear in the rest position in the Halifax and we used to go and of course half the time recording and they’d be searching for a start while we were, we used to go out with the main force and then deviate from the main course and perhaps we’d send out some [unclear] the window, the bomb aimers job, that was to put the window out and then change route again back onto the route and then veer off again and do the same again and that confused the German radar of course.
CB: Hmm.
PW: That was all it was really and we had extra petrol tanks in the Halifax and of course in the Wellington’s so that , and they carried a small bomb to give the bomb aimer something to do, [laughs] it was only a small bomb because they had the extra petrol tanks of course, I can remember one time the bomb aimer’s job was to change the petrol cox and all of a sudden I can remember Ben saying ”did you change the tanks over cox“ and he went flying past me [laughs] to get to the cox to turn the thing on to a different the tank.
CB: What made him say that? The pilot.
PW: Oh I don’t know, just to make sure he had I think [laughs].
CB: Oh right the engines didn’t stop?
PW: The engine didn’t stop no [laughs].
CB: Now what about the special operator, did he link in with the crew or was he very stand offish?
PW: No, no he was the normal one who came with us but he never had anything to do with the crew at all.
CB: What did he do as a job?
PW: Oh as I say the equipment they had, I mean I’ve never seen anything. [unclear] were unknown at one time of course, what was the other name, navigating.
CB: So there was also H2S was there?
PW: H2S that’s right.
CB: Who operated the H2S?
PW: That the special operator who operated that.
CB: He did, did he? Okay.
PW: Yes, yes I didn’t have anything to do with that at all.
CB: So this is the eighth man on the aircraft is it?
PW: Hmm.
CB: You still had the mid-upper gunner did you?
PW: No.
CB: So you only had seven of you in the crew?
PW: If they wanted anybody as mid-upper gunner that was me [laughs] that was the idea being a WOP AG.
CB: Yeah.
PW: But I never did go up into the [unclear] at all.
CB: Right.
PW: I mean we didn’t see that much traffic and the rear gunner was, I know we had a corkscrew a couple of times, that frightens the life out of you that does, but Ben did it marvellously well.
CB: So just describe the corkscrew could you, what started the corkscrew?
PW: In the aircraft approaching.
CB: And who called that?
PW: That I don’t l know because.
CB: But normally?
PW: Normally it would be the navigator I would think, or the bomb aimer.
CB: I’d suggest that it might have been the rear gunner.
PW: [laughs] it might have been the rear gunner, yeah.
CB: Well if the attack was from the front.
PW: Yeah.
CB: Then the bomb aimer would see it wouldn’t he?
PW: Yes, yes.
PW: But the navigator can’t see anything because he’s shrouded up on his table at the side of me.
CB: So what happened with the corkscrew then, you said it was a bit disconcerting so?
PW: It is yeah, yeah, because you’re not strapped in you see.
CB: Right, right.
PW: I mean they are.
CB: But you’re not.
PW: The ones [unclear] are strapped in and the navigator’s strapped in but you’re not strapped in, it’s all of a sudden [makes plane like sound], yeah so it’s a frightening thing, I remember we were doing it once and you were sort of in a, you almost feel like you’re going to lift up.
CB: So can you describe how the aircraft reacts in a corkscrew, what happens, somebody calls to the captain what does he say?
PW: I wouldn’t know.
CB: Corkscrew, corkscrew left or corkscrew right does he? So then what, what does the pilot then do with the aircraft?
PW: Well just doing a quick back left or right.
CB: So he goes down to the left doesn’t he or down to the right and then.
PW: Yeah, roll, not rollover no wouldn’t be a rollover [laughs].
CB: No, no but roll out of it.
PW: Goes straight and then try and get back on whatever the course.
CB: And then back up to what the course was.
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: So the purpose of a corkscrew was to do what?
PW: Just to evade the fighter that was all.
CB: So did you get hit at all in the aircraft?
PW: Never.
CB: Flak or fighter?
PW: Seen plenty of flak.
CB: So what’s it like when you see a lot of flak?
PW: I can’t say I was ever really frightened but I didn’t like the look of it. Ben came and said to me 0nce “come and have a look at this” and of course it was, well you could touch the sky, I just went I’ll go back, I didn’t particularly want to look at it. [laughs] I can’t say I was frightened though, no, no.
CB: Okay, so what is the view of flak, the sky is full of flak but what are you looking at what is it?
PW: The sky’s full of full of white [unclear] it’s terrific really. You think to yourself how the hell are we going to get through that lot. But of course we used to have to leave the mainstream, left or right, leave the mainstream that’s why we had extra petrol tanks. We’d go with the mainstream perhaps as far as the bomb aimer said he released his little bomb we had, and then come back or go right the way round and make our way home you see.
CB: But on the way out are you going, are you saying that on the way out, you’re going in and out of the stream are you?
PW: Yes, hmm more or less.
CB: And that’s because.
PW: Well we’d go out from the stream and drop the.
CB: Window.
PW: Window, yeah. And of course in the meantime hoping that the the special operator found a frequency that the German’s were working on. Because they used to search for the, they’d got some idea which frequencies they were using and then we had equipment for jamming.
CB: Right.
PW: And as soon as he found that he put our equipment on to jam the German RT.
CB: And how did they jam, the German, the special operators?
PW: I. I’ve no idea really. It must have been sending a blast of something like that, I really didn’t know how they did it.
CB: Okay, so H2S was a bulge underneath the fuselage?
PW: Yeah, yeah.
CB: What identification was there that you were special operations with aerials on the top of the aircraft?
PW: Well I don’t know, I think that gave you, that gave the H2S a picture of the terrain.
CB: Yes, but what indication was there on the aircraft that there were special bits of equipment for the special operations man, was there an aerial on the roof or the side or where was it.
PW: There was one underneath, there was a couple on the top and of course there was the DF one on the top, the only one I needed and the only one I operated because I didn’t know what they were doing.
CB: No, no.
PW: Because it was considered secret.
CB: God.
PW: But see if you crash landed or landed and the aircraft was [unclear] the skipper would operate something and destroy the aircraft itself. Once we were all out hopefully [laughs].
CB: Hmm, so the special operator had explosives in his area to destroy the equipment in the event of something going wrong.
PW: Yeah, yeah that’s right.
CB: And to what extent do you think the German’s could identify that you were a special operations aircraft?
PW: [unclear] I have no idea, I don’t know how they could know really I apart from they might be able to feedback from the special aerials maybe, I don’t know.
CB: And later aircraft had a tail warning system for German night fighters to detect the transmissions of German night fighters, what did you have on your aircraft?
PW: Nothing that I know of.
CB: So you couldn’t detect that you were being, that there was somebody creeping up on you?
PW: [unclear the rear gunner.
CB: Like one eyeball.
PW: That’s right, yeah. Hmm.
CB: Okay, good.
PW: We did have to corkscrew one time because the rear gunner saw something and thought it was coming for us.
CB: Hmm, and he missed you?
PW: Hmm, and of course the bomb aimers business this tinsel out, wow that was just like a shoot.
CB: Oh was it, in the Bombay was it?
PW: No, it wasn’t in the Bombay, I know it was quite near the mid-upper turret.
CB: Right, in the floor?
PW: Hmm in the floor, yeah.
CB: How would you describe the performance and comfort of the Halifax?
PW: Well my position was A okay and of course Halifax, yeah, I was underneath the pilot
CB: You were?
PW: Yes.
CB: Right. Did you have any windows?
PW: There was a small one but you had it blacked out anyway.
CB: How high could you fly in the Halifax?
PW: I didn’t think we went much over 10,000.
CB: Oh, was that the, the bomber stream was running higher than that though wasn’t it?
PW: Yeah, but you’d have to have your oxygen on.
CB: Hmm.
PW: If you were over 10,000 anyway and I don’t remember having the oxygen mask on for considerable periods.
CB: Was that partly because you needed to be lower in order for the special operations man to be able to deal with the German night fighters and radar?
PW: Perhaps so, as I say what they did mid- aircraft I didn’t.
CB: No.
PW: We had the Cato air tube there, what do they call it?
CB: The screen for the H2S you mean?
PW: H2S, hmm.
CB: Who operated that?
PW: The special operator.
CB: Oh he did, right okay.
PW: Yes, yes, he was usually an officer or two tour man.
CB: Oh was he, and what sort of languages did he speak?
PW: [pause] I don’t know whether he spoke manually or we used to record send out messages in German from the aircraft.
CB: Hmm.
PW: Once they found a frequency that the fighters were working on, how the hell they did that I don’t know, they must have known what sort of range they were working on.
CB: Yes, well in the 101 squadron for instance, Lancaster’s then the special operators were all German speakers you see so that’s why I’m asking what the languages your special operator spoke.
PW: I wouldn’t know.
CB: I think it reinforces the point doesn’t it that the rest of the crew didn’t know anything about him.
PW: Well perhaps so yeah.
CB: But when, gradually the crew became commissioned is that right?
PW: Hmm.
CB: So where did the special operator live, stay where was he billeted, he was always an officer was he?
PW: Yes, I just presume he was somewhere, either in the officer’s mess or in the, if you were in a station like Foulsham then we had all sorts of, set out in huts, there was no sort of big building.
CB: What was your accommodation at Foulsham?
PW: just a hut.
CB: Nissan hut?
PW: Yes, type of Nissan hut yeah.
CB: With whom?
PW: With a big coke stove in the centre [laughs].
CB: In the middle yeah?
PW: But there was one, we got a little room on our own, the rear gunner and myself and so we were quite cosy there.
CB: I’m just going to stop this a moment. We’re talking about the accommodation you had, so how many other crew members were in the same accommodation as you?
PW: Well there was just the rear gunner and myself.
CB: Right.
PW: The others being commissioned.
CB: So what social life did you have as a crew?
PW: Oh well we always used to get, the whole crew used to go to Norwich, they used to have a truck take us all to Norwich and we all mixed in together. The place we used to go to in Norwich Samson and Hercules, that was a , well the only trouble was the Americans used to go in there as well. And that’s the time that.
IW: Yes.
PW: I could never understand.
CB: What?
PW: What it was all about.
CB: Why, how do you mean?
PW: Well when the Americans and the Samson and Hercules came in they had separate colours of squadrons and whatever.
CB: They segregated their people by colour?
PW: Yeah, yeah, when they got, they used to create hell, and of course the white caps, so in the end we decided we wouldn’t go in the Samson [laughs].
CB: You mean that they would take out the blacks so that they weren’t in with the white air crew is that what you mean?
PW: Well they sought them out, they would come into the dancefloor and then all of a sudden a coloured one would be with one of the white yank’s fancies and then they would start. We used to say, I don’t know [laughs] I don’t know who we’re supposed to be fighting for, [laughs] the whole place [unclear] and it was strange absolutely and of course the white caps used to lie about them with their truncheons like.
CB: These are the military police?
PW: Yeah, yeah and they didn’t spare any blushes.
CB: No, no. So where they American black ground crew or where there any American black air crew?
PW: Well no they had American, there was an American all black squadron.
CB: There was. Where was that based?
PW: I’ve no idea where it was based.
CB: No.
PW: It was in East Anglia.
CB: What were they flying, fighters?
PW: No Fortresses.
CB: Oh they were, right. Now in the RAF how often did you come across people from the West Indies or Africa or whatever, India?
PW: No we didn’t, we had one officer in the squad who was a West Indian, and I didn’t get to know him at all but he was a very nice fella, but as I say we didn’t have much to do with him really.
CB: What did he do, was he a pilot, navigator or what was he?
PW: He was pilot rank if I remember rightly.
CB: What rank?
PW: maybe a Flight Lieutenant [pause].
CB: On your squadron?
PW: Well I don’t know if he was on our squadron because we had a, we shared a place with 462 Squadron who were Australian. Yes it was 462 Squadron who shared a base with us.
CB: Oh right.
PW: So he might have been with them.
CB: So there was what one did you ever know or come across any other colonial, West Indian or African?
PW: No, not while on squadron, no.
CB: No, okay, Right. Now when you came to the end of the war, you’d already done your tour?
PW: Yes.
CB: How was it that you then did a second tour? Because people tended at the end of a tour to then go on ground jobs. So how did you change to a second tour?
PW: I didn’t go on to a second tour.
CB: Ah.
PW: No.
CB: So you did your thirty?
PW: Yes, that’s right.
CB: So which squadron were you with when you did that?
PW: That was with, with 192.
CB: Right. But then you went to 102 and then 53.
PW: 102 became 53
CB: Okay, and was the war still on when you changed to that?
PW: No, no.
CB: So it just happened that the end of your tour was also at the end of the war was it?
PW: Yes in fact we were on the last bomber command raid of the war to Flensburg.
CB: Yes which is what you said earlier to Flensburg.
PW: That’s right that was on the 2nd of May 1945.
CB: And did you do any ferrying of POWS’ after that in operation exodus?
PW: No, no we did, what ferrying we did then was taking Halifax’s up to the graveyard [laughs] up to Scotland and then come back with one of the others.
CB: They flew you back in some other plane?
PW: Yeah in one, one plane.
CB: Yeah. So the war ended in 1946 and you were de-mobbed, does it say there when you were de-mobbed?
PW: 1945 [pause]
CB: In 1946?
PW: In 1945 I was transferred to 102 Squadron Pocklington and that became 53 Squadron.
CB: Right.
PW: And that was , what was it Bassetlorn.
CB: Upward? You were at Upward as well?
PW: I was at Upward [pause]
CB: So you never did fly Lancasters?
PW: No. Never flew one.
CB: So you came to the end of the war then what did you do, you left the RAF when you were de-mobbed.
PW: Yeah.
CB: How did they kit you out?
PW: Oh well I went, they sent me up to , oh where was it, Yorkshire, I was doing on a sort of radar station, but that was only for a little while of course it wouldn’t be in my log book.
CB: Hmm, it’s in our pay book. Yeah. So then you went back to civilian life doing what?
PW: Well as an adult apprentice, I carried on in my apprenticeship and the Government paid Camphill Press the money to make my wages up to a German’s rate.
CB: Right.
PW: Although I was an adult apprentice.
CB: Right.
PW: I was supposed to do three years like that.
CB: But you did less did you?
PW: No I carried on doing that and and then of course we, to make up for the fact that I missed a few years apprenticeship, of course an apprenticeship was seven years in those days [laughs].
CB: Oh right.
PW: And so they used to pay the Salvation Army publishing supplies and the money to make up my, to a German’s rate. So I was still in an adult apprenticeship and I went up to London printing for quite a while.
CB: On day release was it?
PW: Yep. [pause]
CB: Where was that Camden Town?
PW: No, [pause].
CB: Regent Street Poly?
PW: [pause] No, no it’s, a London School of printing and bookbinders, Stamford street that was.
CB: Right, Okay.
PW: Before they moved of course, and then of course I then got a job with somebody I used to work with had started up on his own and I went to work for him.
CB: What was that called?
PW: Book binding.
CB: No, no the company.
PW: The company, what was it called?
IW: It was Mr Hicks.
PW: Hmm, yeah Mr Hicks, I forget what the book binding was called. Universal Booking Binding he called himself.
CB: And you stayed there how long?
PW: Oh, about a year if that.
CB: Then what?
PW: Then I was with a chap who I was an apprentice with, the name of Clark, he was an older chap and he was working for this fella so he got a deputy and there was three of us and he was a composter and we started our own book binding company.
CB: And what was that called?
PW: For what part of a better name, Reliance Book Binding Company [laughs]. And, well as I said I’m not going to work for somebody else, I’ll work for myself, and I did.
CB: With two others.
PW: With the help of two others, yes, partners. But of course that didn’t last, the partnership didn’t last in the end.
CB: How long did it run for?
PW: Because one of the chaps thought he’s now a boss he could please himself when he comes and goes [laughs].
CB: One of those.
PW: [laughs]. So that didn’t work very well did it , so I decided we’d end that so we ended that partnership so there was just Mr Clark and myself.
IW: [unclear]
PW: And we carried on as the Reliance Book Binding Company until I retired.
CB: Which was when?
PW: When did I retire?
IW: I don’t know because you still used to.
CB: What age?
PW: I wasn’t sixty even was I, fifty-five.
IW: Oh no, never fifty-five.
PW: It was when I retired from, when did I retire from working for myself then?
IW: I don’t know, but you certainly didn’t retire at fifty-five.
CB: Anyway you retired, after you retired did you then do another job or?
PW: No, no.
CB: Your pension was enough to keep going, or did you sell out or did you sell your part of the company?
PW: I did, Ron and myself sold the company to the chaps we worked with over a period of three year and.
IW: The chaps that worked for you, you didn’t just work with them they worked for you.
PW: That’s right yeah.
CB: Okay, and then you put your feet up?
PW: No, not really.
CB: What did you do, I started.
PW: What did I do after that?
IW: [unclear]
CB: I’ll just stop recording for a bit.
CB: We’re just picking up what happened after the war, so after the war you went back to civilian life but actually you returned to the RAF in the volunteer reserves so when did you do that and what did you do?
PW: Well it should be in there.
CB: So it’s 1951 to 1953. What were you doing?
PW: [pause]
CB: Because you said it was the reserve flying school, but what were you actually doing for them?
PW: Wireless operator on Anderson’s and I finished that in 1954.
CB: So what was the purpose of the?
IW: What was the purpose Peter?
CB: What was the purpose of this organisation the reserve flying school who were you teaching?
PW: Just to keep, keep your hand in really.
CB: Right.
PW: We used to have weekend flying and then an annual week at Cambridge.
CB: Right.
PW: And then I finished that and that’s when I finished the RAF altogether wasn’t it.
CB: Right. Ok.
PW: Hmm, so I was then just a sergeant.
CB: Oh they took you down to sergeant from warrant officer?
PW: So yeah, when I was back in reserve, that’s right wasn’t it, just had the three stripes again.
CB: Okay, thank you very much.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAWoodardP160512TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Peter WoodardRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:09:35 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceChris BrockbankDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-05-12CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGreat BritainEngland--NorfolkEngland--YorkshireGermany--FlensburgGermany--Frankfurt am MainGermany--HannoverDescriptionAn account of the resourcePeter Woodard was a wireless operator and after training at RAF Yatesbury he flew operations with 192 Squadron.ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceCarron MossTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1943194419451946100 Group102 Squadron192 SquadronaircrewAnsonbombingCook’s tourcrewing upHalifaxMosquitooperational training unitRAF FoulshamRAF PocklingtontrainingWellingtonwireless operatorwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/PShenbanjoA1701.2.jpg28672247ff8d13752e2c93c8a8e5f8fchttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/326/3485/AShenbanjoN170727.1.mp35eacf3be349c6c8c6109ab5cfc456dffDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceShenbanjo, AkinA ShenbanjoDescriptionAn account of the resource13 items. An oral history interview with Neville Shenbanjo (b. 1945), the son of Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC, and 12 photographs.
Akin Shenbanjo attempted to volunteer for service with Bomber Command whilst in Nigeria. He was told they were not recruiting there so he made his own way to the UK to enlist. After training he flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Neville Shenbanjo and catalogued by Barry Hunter.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-07-27RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextShenbanjo, ADublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAShenbanjoN170727, PShenbanjoA1701TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Neville ShenbanjoRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:54:36 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending OH transcriptionPending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceHeather HughesDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-07-27CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSecond generationSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainNigeriaEngland--YorkshireDescriptionAn account of the resourceNeville Shenbanjo was born in 1945, the son of Akin Shenbanjo. Flying Officer Akin Shenbanjo DFC was born in Nigeria and served as a wireless operator / air gunner with 76 Squadron. His crew named their Halifax 'Achtung! The Black Prince' after him.
76 Squadronaircrewethnic or religious minoritiesHalifaxperception of bombing warwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/311/3468/PNuttingS1704.1.jpg629966ef5e6ac53d82ae6062e6f210c5https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/311/3468/ANuttingS170222.2.mp3076ea473c2e1d4fc5c8e8075b35f2257Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceNutting, Sinclair Sinclair Nutting Clair NuttingS NuttingDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Sinclair "Clair" Nutting (b. 1921, J85055 Royal Canadian Air Force).PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-07-22RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextNutting, STranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentJM: This interview is being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre. The interviewer is Jean MacCartney. The interviewee is Sinclair or Clair Nutting. The interview is taking place at Mr Nutting’s home in Banora Point, New South Wales on the 22nd of February 2017. Now, Clair, you’ve written a book called, “A Piece Of Cake,” which documents a lot of your experiences but even so we’ d like to go through some aspects of those and other aspects that perhaps were not covered with —in as much detail. So, let’s go back to the beginning. You were born in 19 —
SN: ’21.
JM: ’21. And where were you born?
SN: I was born in a place called Radisson. R A D I S S O N.
JM: R A D I S S — Yeah.
SN: Saskatchewan S A S K. period. Canada.
JM: And that is where you spent your, most of your youth.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And that’s where you did you schooling.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And you, your family had been in the area there for quite some time.
SN: Yes. They were pioneers.
JM: Pioneers. Yes. And what sort of pioneers? Pioneers in what way? They were farming.
SN: They were the first, among the first settlers as farmers in that area.
JM: Going back how many years would that be, do you think?
SN: To 1900.
JM: 1900. Yeah. And so what was your family farming?
SN: It was what we call a mixed farm of grain, wheat, oats, barley, rye. And animals. Cattle, horses, pigs, chickens.
JM: Right. And so all of those animals — were they raised and then sold or some of it used for home consumption as well? Or a mix again? Or what?
SN: It was rather a mix. They had horses of course were what were used to work the farm
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the cattle and pigs we slaughtered as we needed them. And they were sold on the market when they were ready to sell.
JM: So. Right. So, you sold them as cured stock.
SN: As beef and pork. Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. And your father did all the butchery or did he bring in somebody to do the butchery?
SN: No. My father did it.
JM: Right. Ok. And what about the grains? They were all sold. You sent stuff off to silos and that sort of thing or what happened there?
SN: It was, it was a large family farm which included my father, his brothers, my grandfather and they ran it as a unit. It must have been, what? About six sections of land or something like that. It — all of the farms in that area at that time were mixed farms meaning that they were — the people who lived on them were [pause] what’s the word I’m seeking? They were dependant on the farm for their livelihood. For gardens, for grain, for the animals. That kind of thing.
JM: Ok. And so, you would assist in some of the farming duties from time to time when you were a young lad a or —?
SN: Yes. All farm kids that were old enough were expected to earn their keep.
JM: Keep. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So what sort of things? What sort of tasks were you given?
SN: Oh, there were all sorts of things. In harvest time we would move out with the men. We did all the usual things, I guess. Getting water and wood. Driving horses on wagons and on machines. Binders and ploughs and that kind of thing.
JM: So then again you probably got some sort of basic mechanical, more than basic mechanical training with helping to repair machinery and all of that sort of thing from time to time too, I guess.
SN: All that I wished to have. Yes [laughs]
JM: Right. So, so you were doing this in between your schooling and so what was your schooling? I’m not particularly familiar with the Canadian education system. So would you have gone to school — normal school? The start age in Australia is five. And then through what they call primary school and then transfer to a high school or secondary school. And usually, well, back then, they usually finished about seventeen. Sometimes sixteen. But if they left early they finished at fourteen or fifteen. So how did the Canadian system —
SN: Pretty much the same Jean but this might be interesting. It was during the Depression.
JM: Yes.
SN: And during the Depression they had correspondence courses.
JM: Right.
SN: And I, for instance, went to a country school which had a total of eighteen pupils in all grades from one to ten.
JM: Right. Yeah.
SN: So that was most of my schooling.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was caused by the Depression.
JM: Depression.
SN: They wanted to get the kids back to school.
JM: The kids were on the farms basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: I suppose. Yes.
SN: Yes. And I then went into the town for the last, I guess, year and a half I was there
JM: Right. And how far away was town away?
SN: Six miles.
JM: Six miles. Right.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And did you travel in and out each day or did you stay in town?
SN: I boarded with a family.
JM: Right.
SN: For a year and a half during the winters.
JM: Right.
SN: Because it was too difficult.
JM: Too difficult.
SN: To get me back and forward.
JM: Back and forward. Yeah. And was this family friends of the family or —?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. They were dear people.
JM: They were?
SN: They were dear people.
JM: Dear people.
SN: Yes. And good friends of mine.
JM: Good friend. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. Ok. So. So that, yes, well that in a way is actually quite similar to what country children in New South Wales in particular would have experienced as well because they had, like, one teacher schools.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And you would have had one teacher school there.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yes. Yes. So, what —
SN: One size fits all.
JM: Fits all. Who had sort of a multitude of different grades in the classroom in one corner and scattered all around the area and he was, he or she would be moving between all the children and helping them with the grade that they were on. So, the teacher was — had a bit of a challenge in those sort of situations as well didn’t they? So —
SN: Yes. I didn’t finish my high school.
JM: No?
SN: I was expelled.
JM: Oh, I see. Yes. Right. Because? You —
SN: I misbehaved.
JM: You misbehaved. Yes.
SN: Yes. What — it might be interesting — when I came back from overseas and was discharged you had to go to the capital of the Province, which was Regina, to be discharged. And I wanted to go to university so I went to see a man called a Registrar who was a small god in charge of education and I was in uniform and I told him my story. He listened, I came back the following day and his secretary came out and said, ‘I’m sorry. Mr,’ whatever his name was, I’ve forgotten, ‘Is unable to see you. He was called away,’ and my face fell. And she said, ‘but he left you this.’ And she handed me an envelope which was a, to the effect that I had fulfilled all of the qualifications for Grade 12 and marks were given me which brought me up to the level to enter the university.
JM: Very good.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Very good indeed. So that gave you the chance to go to university.
SN: That’s right.
JM: After you returned. Yeah. Ok.
SN: That’s right.
JM: We’ll come back to all of that in due course. But so, you, what age were you when you were expelled? Roughly. Do you remember?
SN: I joined up when I was eighteen. I suppose I would have been seventeen.
JM: Seventeen. Right. Ok. So I presume in that year between being expelled and being called up you probably just worked on the farm? Is that? Or did you go and get a job?
SN: No. it was a, it was the end of the school year.
JM: Right.
SN: And I joined up in December of 1940.
JM: Right.
SN: And by that time, because of my birthday, I was eighteen.
JM: Right. So --
SN: So —
JM: So it just happened.
SN: Yes.
JM: Just went through the war in a sequence.
SN: Yes. It did.
JM: Alright. So signed up then for the air force.
SN: Yes.
JM: Any particular reason for the air force or —?
SN: Well the air force was quite [pause] it was, I suppose the, the glamour service at that time. This was where people who wanted adventure or saw the war as an adventure this was where they went.
JM: And so that’s what attracted you. You saw that as an adventure.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: And you said, ‘Right.’
SN: That was very good.
JM: If they’ll have me that’s where I’ll go, sort of thing.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes. Ok. Actually, I just meant to just backtrack once before we get in to — so this was in 1940 that you enlisted but just before that how, how much of an impact did the Depression have on your family? Because you were on the farm you were a little bit able to cope. A little bit better than perhaps people in town because you had lots —
SN: Yes.
JM: Of resources at hand, so to speak.
SN: That’s right. That’s right.
JM: In terms of food and, you know, meat and chicken and eggs. And you had milking cows too I presume.
SN: Exactly. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. So, you were relatively comfortable.
SN: I was.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In terms of the Depression I was — our family came through it pretty well.
JM: Well —
SN: You know there was never a time when I had to think about —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whether I had any food to eat.
JM: Yeah. Whether there was going to be food on the table. Yes.
SN: Work or what have you.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Ok. So, you enlisted then December 1940.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes, and where did you do your initial training?
SN: I went to Brandon.
JM: Brandon. Yes.
SN: Which was the manning depot.
JM: Where? Sorry?
SN: It was the manning depot.
JM: Right. And where is Brandon in —?
SN: Brandon —
JM: How far away from Radisson is that? I assume you enlisted in Radisson or did you have to go over to the main —
SN: No. No. I had to go to the main, the largest city.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was Saskatoon.
JM: Right. And then so from there to Brandon how far? Where? What sort of distance is that? Just roughly. You know. Sort of a day’s train ride or half a day.
SN: It’s a day’s train ride.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: Yes.
JM: So you were over there. So your parents were happy about you enlisting were they? Or was your father a bit —?
SN: I think so.
JM: I forgot to check. Did you have any other brothers and sisters? Or —?
SN: I had one sister but she was much younger than I am. She was seven years younger. After I was expelled I, and the fellow who was expelled with me, we got one of the freight trains that went into the city and we went to the army, the navy and the air force and nobody would have us because they said we were seventeen and did we have permission?
JM: So, you weren’t able to get in at that point.
SN: No.
JM: No. So then when you turned eighteen, you said to your parents. How did they feel about that?
SN: I think they were pretty well resolved that it was going to happen. It wasn’t something they — like all parents they were fearful but I think they were resigned that this was what most people, like me, were doing.
JM: Ok. So, you’re off to Brandon. Is that right?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And what —how long were you there?
SN: Oh, I would think a couple of months.
JM: A couple of months. Yeah. So, this is early ‘41 basically.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ok. And from Brandon where did you go next?
SN: We went to what was called guard duty.
JM: Guard duty. Yeah.
SN: Which was another couple of months?
JM: Yeah. And where was that?
SN: And that was in Saskatoon.
JM: Yeah. So back to almost near home. Yeah.
SN: Yes. It was back to a couple of hours away.
JM: Yeah. And that was about a couple of months you think.
SN: Yeah. Roughly.
JM: What sort of things did guard duty — what sort of things were you guarding something? What? I mean guard duty sort of implies you were guarding. What did it actually?
SN: It was really part of the training regime to get people sorted out as to what they were to do. It was compulsory. You had two hours on, four hours off, two hours on, four hours off during which you went — in this instance we were guarding, they were guarding airports. Everybody went through this. And you simply went out with your musket and [laughs] patrolled an area for two hours and they checked that you were there and you were awake. And then they — oh there was continuous inspections and little marches and that kind of thing. It was a training thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah. Ok.
SN: Everybody went through it.
JM: Ok. So this is possibly getting to the — just beyond winter so at least out on guard duty.
SN: Yes.
JM: You were not out in the depths of winter. Out.
SN: No. no. There was danger.
JM: Pacing the perimeters.
SN: No danger involved.
JM: Yes. But I mean, but you weren’t out in the cold and snow and all the rest of it though at this point.
SN: No. No. No.
JM: Because as I I say it had become more or less the end.
SN: Yes, it was —
JM: You were pretty well early spring at this stage so —
SN: Yes. Yes, it was spring.
JM: Yes. So, ok. So what, anything in particular that stands out from there. Things that you realised you could do or things that you were being asked to do that you didn’t like doing or anything like that?
SN: I don’t think there was anything remarkable about it.
JM: About it.
SN: It was [pause] I think there were something like twenty four of us that went through this. Nothing.
JM: In that group.
SN: Yes. Nothing remarkable.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where did you go to from there?
SN: I went to Calgary.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that was to do wireless training.
JM: Ok. Yes.
SN: Wireless air gunners.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that time we all got to wear a white flash in our caps.
JM: Caps.
SN: Which separated you from those who didn’t and I was there for — what? Maybe four months or something.
JM: Right. So, would this be, say, around about May? May ’41 to —
SN: I would say.
JM: To October ’41.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that?
SN: Until, until December.
JM: Until December. Ok so we could work back from there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, December, November, October. September to December. So, we’ll say August/September to December of ‘41 there at your wireless.
SN: Yes. I would say it was a five month course.
JM: Course. Yeah.
SN: That would be my recollection.
JM: Recollection. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. And so all facets of being a wireless op and air gunner all mixed in together. You didn’t — or did you do blocks of wireless work and then —
SN: No. It was all wireless.
JM: It was all wireless. Yeah.
SN: It was all wireless. And I did not finish the course.
JM: Right.
SN: I went —
JM: For any particular reason? Or —?
SN: Yes. I went on leave for, what was it, it was a long weekend and I caught pneumonia.
JM: That’s right. Yes.
SN: In Saskatoon. And they put me in the hospital and I was in the hospital for nearly six weeks.
JM: Yes.
SN: You know. And I was in an oxygen tent for —
JM: Yes. Because you were not a well person for —
SN: For four days because I had — I was lucky.
JM: Yes.
SN: They brought out the first of the Sulfa drugs and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. Yes. Of course. That’s how bad you were.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So when I finished they posted me.
JM: So, this — when, when was, that was when?
SN: That was from the end of November.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until the end of the year.
JM: Yes. That you were in hospital.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: In hospital or convalescent leave.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was something like that.
JM: That’s right. Yeah. So therefore, you didn’t actually finish that course. So, what happened there?
SN: I don’t know whether I would, to be very frank. I don’t know whether I would ever have. It was probably a good thing in that I wasn’t particularly — I could do the Morse at speed but I was not particularly — I don’t think I would have been a particularly good wireless operator. So, in any event, at the end of this thing they posted me to Trenton.
JM: Right. Where’s —?
SN: As what we used to call a straight air gunner.
JM: Yeah. And whereabouts is Trenton?
SN: Trenton is in Eastern Canada.
JM: Right. And when would this be? January ‘42?
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. And that was for straight air —
SN: Yes.
JM: Air gunner training.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Yeah. So, what stands out about that training?
SN: It was about [pause] maybe six weeks. Something like that. Well I think I had decided that I really had to make this.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was a large course and I came second. I think it was probably the first time I realised that I could do something.
JM: Do something. Yeah.
SN: This was, I think, largely attributable, I covered it in this book.
JM: Yes.
SN: This man I met who was much older than I was and he — I was a little ashamed of being somewhat bookish and that it was a bit sissy to excel. And he said, ‘You know, this is foolish.’
JM: Yes.
SN: ‘You do as well as you can.’
JM: You can. Yeah.
SN: [unclear] you can do that. And I did. And the other thing which is also covered in this book was the rather extraordinary thing of this man who was court martialled and, because he thought that he was operating a camera gun when he was not. He was operating a Vickers machine gun.
JM: Machine gun.
SN: And he shot up a parade of airmen.
JM: Airmen. That’s right.
SN: In a row.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was court martialled. And as I say in there this was an extraordinary spectacle that I’ve never forgotten. He was a little non-descript fella from Newfoundland whose name was Silver and he, the entire station, it was a big station, was out in hollow square.
JM: On parade.
SN: With the, we were all, yes, we were all on parade and we were all there and the band was there and the group captain was there with a table and the man with the leopard skin drum. The whole bit was the drum rolls, everything.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this poor little man was marched up and his hat off in front of this table, and the drum rolls cut off by [unclear] this corporal. Cut them off.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Cut them off.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And threw them on the ground.
JM: Ground.
SN: Marched him off.
JM: Off.
SN: And he got two years in the penitentiary.
JM: Penitentiary.
SN: So, we all remembered that.
JM: That.
SN: And it was for not turning up.
JM: Up.
SN: For an overseas posting. And so, I think, I think we all got the point.
JM: You all got the point. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So, then, so this is sort of becoming a turning point. So, after the air gunning. This training at Trenton. Where did you go?
SN: Well I got, as everyone else did, our air gunner badge.
JM: Badge.
SN: And sergeant’s stripes.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we all went on embarkation leave. And that was a couple of weeks or ten days. I’ve forgotten. But Canada is like Australia in that train journeys were very long.
JM: Long. That’s right.
SN: It takes —
JM: And of course, if you’re right over in Eastern Canada that’s a long way from home.
SN: Yes.
JM: To get back. Yes.
SN: So then, following embarkation leave I came to Halifax and —
JM: So, you didn’t — did you actually get home in that embarkation leave?
SN: Yes, I did.
JM: Or — yes, you did .
SN: Yes. I got home for about ten days I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then we were back to Halifax and just as things worked out we were the last, there were twelve of us marched down to board ship. And we were the last people aboard.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the convoy left that about an hour or two later.
JM: Gosh. So this would have been the end of March, early April ’42.
SN: This would have been early March. Yes. 1942.
JM: Yeah. Probably be about mid-March. Oh yeah. Early March. Yeah. Yeah. That’s ok. Yeah. Early March ‘42. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: And so so Halifax. So where —?
SN: Halifax is —
JM: So was this a large troop carrier that you were on? Or a small —
SN: A large convoy.
JM: Yes. But there was a convoy but were the boats themselves — was there large troop carriers.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you have any sense of whether there were thousands there? Or perhaps under a thousand or —?
SN: There were, they were crowded.
JM: They were crowded.
SN: It was a ship called the Andes. Which had run on the Latin American English run.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Not a bad ship.
JM: Yes. No.
SN: But we were in cabins. They were, I think, seven or eight of us in a little —
JM: A cabin. Yeah.
SN: And the the toilets were at the end of the —
JM: Yeah. Corridor so to speak.
SN: Corridor. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So where —
SN: But it was good enough. It wasn’t bad. We could —
JM: Ok. So —
SN: Everybody had —
JM: So where did you land in —
SN: We landed in Greenock which is Glasgow.
JM: Glasgow. Yeah. And so, on the train down to —
SN: We had no, yes, we had no adventures. We had one emergency in the Irish Sea where they shot at, where they put down a sub and the convoys were in lines of destroyers.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ships.
JM: Ships. Yeah.
SN: Following one another.
JM: You don’t remember how many were in that convoy? In that total convoy.
SN: I haven’t the vaguest idea whatever.
JM: No. That’s ok.
SN: What it is.
JM: So you got there pretty uneventfully.
SN: Yes. Now they may have, I think they sunk something in the Irish Sea.
JM: Sea.
SN: But that was it.
JM: That was it.
SN: So we had really quite a good —
JM: Quite. Ok. So then you’re off in Glasgow. You’re on the train I presume to —
SN: We went by train to Bournemouth.
JM: Bournemouth. Yeah.
SN: Where everyone went and that was a manning depot there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you stayed in Bournemouth.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Until you were posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: To wherever you were going.
JM: Going. Yeah.
SN: They were, we were a mixture of pilots, observers.
JM: Observers. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Everything. And that was a very easy thing. The only remarkable thing again, which was in the book, was that we were quartered in formerly resort hotels and we ate in a different building than the one in which we were housed.
JM: Right.
SN: And we came out this one day and a siren went and we tumbled out on the street and I remember seeing these two Fokker Wulf 190s come in and they came under the radar. Just straight over the —
SN: We were right on the end — Bournemouth is a —
JM: Seaside bit.
SN: Seaside resort. And they came under the radar and they came right up and they bombed. Dropped their bombs and went.
JM: Went.
SN: And they hit the building we were to eat in and I can remember we were all amazed. Standing there with our mouths open. And some of them, finally they were digging around in the thing said, ‘Come.’
JM: Come.
SN: Don’t stand there like —’
JM: Yeah. ‘Come and help us dig.’
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: So, it was a rude awakening.
JM: Awakening to the realities of war. What so now you finally knew what you were about to be part of .
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yes. It was real.
JM: It was real. That’s right. So, any idea of how long you were in Bournemouth for? So you would have been there. How long did it — I didn’t — how long did it take to get from Halifax across to — It would only have been a couple of days.
SN: About ten days.
JM: Ten days. Yeah. And so then down. So, we’re probably talking about April. Bournemouth was probably about April ‘42 to — how long do you reckon?
SN: Maybe to June.
JM: To June. Yeah. And so where did we, and so —
SN: May or June. I’ve forgotten.
JM: May or June. What sort of — were they giving you any theory lessons there at this stage?
SN: No. It was — you just had a roll call.
JM: Roll call.
SN: Once a day.
JM: Once a day.
SN: And that was it.
JM: Pre. So did you —
SN: And then you did whatever you pleased.
JM: So, did you go up to London or do anything like that or how did you spend your time?
SN: No. You were not, you were I don’t know whether, they must have told us. No. No one went anywhere. I think you were on call.
JM: Call. Right.
SN: That you would be moving out as soon as it happened.
JM: Moving out soon. Yeah.
SN: And I don’t think anybody was —
JM: Right.
SN: You would have had to have leave.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: To do that.
JM: To do that. Yes. Ok. So, you were, you were just basically sitting around. What did you —play cards or things like that to pass the time? Or what did you do to pass? So just basically sitting around. Effectively doing nothing. How did you pass, how did you and your mates pass your time? Sit down on the —
SN: We moved around. It was quite a beautiful place with many gardens. We moved around during the day to the beach and so on and the pubs at night.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Nobody had all that much money.
JM: Money.
SN: You know that you [laughs]
JM: No. that’s right. Yeah.
SN: You could —
JM: Basically, sit and watch the world go by.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: There was no, there was no, no attempt to discipline or to —
JM: Right. Ok. So, from, so nothing, no particular experiences stand out whilst in Bournemouth.
SN: No, I don’t think there was anything there.
JM: No. Ok.
SN: There was a Palais dance. A Palais de Dance which they had in most places, you know.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, where, where to next? Was it to Wales next?
SN: I went to Wales.
JM: Yes.
SN: To a place called Stormy Down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: It was a mining area.
JM: Yes.
SN: Coal mines.
JM: Yeah. And over there you were doing —
SN: To a gunnery school.
JM: To the gunnery school again. Yes. And roughly how long was that?
SN: It wasn’t all that long. I would say that it might have been a month. Pretty full on.
JM: Yes. And so, this was where you came. So, you hadn’t done any gunnery training back in Canada so, this would be your —
SN: Yes, I had.
JM: You had. You did do some.
SN: Oh yes. Yes.
JM: When you were at Calgary.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: When I was in Trenton.
JM: Trenton. Trenton. Ok. So — oh my apologies. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, because that’s where you were second. Second. Had the second highest score. Ok so how were the — what were you using? Different guns here now between what you were using in Trenton? Or —
SN: Yes. We were using [pause] what can I remember about it now? In Britain we were using old Lewis guns which were a pan that sits on the thing and it feeds outside and it seems to me that we were [pause] I’m not sure now what? We did quite a bit of target shooting. Drogue shooting where a drogue is dragged.
JM: Dragged. Yes.
SN: And of course in both places you do a lot of — what do you call it? [pause] Where you do — you shoot at the —
JM: Skeet.
SN: Skeet shooting.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A lot of skeet shooting. A lot of target shooting. That kind of thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And —
JM: As part of this.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And there was a course.
JM: Yes.
SN: Which you, of benefit and I did very well. I got — they said, “A very good air gunner.” So —
JM: Were there particular competitions or something or —
SN: Yes. They would mark you for —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Target scores. How you —
JM: And you were coming out on top a lot.
SN: Yes.
JM: Right.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, do you think you would have perhaps back when you were younger, on the farm, I presume you would have been doing some shooting there.
SN: Yes.
JM: So, do you feel that that perhaps gave you a bit of an advantage having sort of been always shooting moving targets. I would presume a lot of the time they were moving so —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: I don’t know.
JM: You don’t know.
SN: No.
JM: Yeah. But nevertheless you obviously had an aptitude for it because you were doing very well there with your skeet.
SN: Yeah. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. And you didn’t retain an interest in skeet shooting at any time. You didn’t do it many years down the track. Just as a little deviation here for a second.
SN: Only once.
JM: Yes.
SN: We were on a transatlantic ship with the family going somewhere. I’ve forgotten where but going. I was Foreign Affairs and we used to go by ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And they had a competition on this ship for skeet shooting.
JM: Yes.
SN: And I guess there were about thirty or forty people there and I won.
JM: You won.
SN: And they gave me a cup.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the rather wonderful thing about this was that both the kids were there and watched it. The two boys.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So that brought my [laughs]
JM: Increased your standing in their eyes no end. Did it?
SN: Yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: Ah well that’s very very interesting. So, do you remember how many rounds you had to shoot or was it a decent length competition or did they sort of try to keep it.
SN: It was, it was a pretty, a pretty easy one.
SN: Yeah.
SM: Ordinarily if you do skeet shooting you go through about seven stations.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And that means you’re shooting —
JM: Different heights. Yeah.
SN: At a bird at the height it’s going.
JM: Yeah.
SN: As it’s going away from you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up. It’s all the way through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Whereas this one was there. Had to be done from the back of the ship.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you didn’t have, they couldn’t.
JM: Have variations.
SN: They couldn’t have done any variations of any sort.
JM: Any sort. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: That amounted to very much.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, you really did five and somebody, maybe they were five of you shot five each and you won that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then those who won competed again.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t really [laughs] that big a thing.
JM: It wasn’t such a big challenge for you.
SN: No.
JM: Having had all that other experience. Ok. Well that’s all very interesting. Ok. Well you completed the gunnery at Stormy Down. About a month. So, from there. OTU.
SN: I went to OTU.
JM: Yeah.
SN: At a place called Honeybourne.
JM: Yeah.
SN: A beautiful place in the Midlands.
JM: Yes.
SN: Near Evesham and Stratford on Avon. Yeah.
JM: And so how long were you at OTU?
SN: I was there for the fall because I remember we went out to steal apples. I got to the squadron in — maybe in October. Now, I had these. The reason I don’t have these dates here is my logbook was stolen.
JM: Stolen. Yes. I know. From when the book was —
SN: So I don’t have this.
JM: Yes. I know.
SN: I’m really just doing memory.
JM: I know. I’m just trying. I fully appreciate that I’m really testing your memory here but yeah.
SN: In the late summer and early fall I was at the OTU. I would have been —
JM: OTU. So that’s probably —
SN: I would have been there for at least three months.
JM: Three months. Right. So, we’re probably talking about August. September.
SN: Yes, I would say August September.
JM: August September of ‘42 we’re talking about here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Yeah. And what stands out about OTU? Anything in particular. Apart from the fact that there was nice countryside. There were nice orchards where you could scrounge some apples.
SN: Yes. Well they had very nice pubs and you could chase girls.
JM: Yeah. Yes.
SN: And the weather was delightful.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the only thing that — two things happened I guess. One was that you, a lot of OTU is the gunner — each, each — the gunners have their own courses. The navigators. Pilots. Then you form a crew.
JM: Yes. You’re doing your crewing up. Yeah.
SN: And a lot of this was called circuits and bumps.
JM: Bumps. Yeah.
SN: Around and around and around.
JM: Around and around. Yeah.
SN: And one night a German night fighter got in the thing. Got in the — there’s usually four aircraft.
JM: Aircraft.
SN: And they follow one another.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he got in the line.
JM: Line. Yes.
SN: And shot it down. We were in Whitleys which was an old two engine.
JM: Engine.
SN: Bomber. And he got in the line and shot the —
JM: The Whitley that was in front.
SN: The Whitley, as it was landing. Yes. So that was a big thing for us.
JM: That was. Yes. And, but that wasn’t you.
SN: No.
JM: Were you in, were you in.
SN: I wasn’t, I wasn’t even in the circuit either.
JM: You weren’t in the circuit either.
SN: No.
JM: Right. And what was the outcome with that Whitley. Was it —did he inflict injury as well as damage to the aircraft or —
SN: Yes.
JM: He did.
SN: Yes. He did.
JM: So, what? Killed all the crew or —
SN: No. No. I think they [pause] I think one. I think one man was either, either killed or very badly injured
JM: Injured
SN: And the aircraft was of course.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Runway. Smashed itself.
JM: Smashed itself. Yeah. Right. Ok. So at this point your crew. You’ve now, you crew up as well here at OTU.
SN: Yes.
JM: This is when you form your crew. So, your pilot.
SN: Was — I’ll deal with that I think.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was a man called Stonehill.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was a squadron leader.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he was from Fighter Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I don’t know what he’d done but he was, he was not happy to be there.
JM: No.
SN: That was not what— he didn’t really want to fly this [laughs] box like aircraft. And he was, we thought he was old. Old would be he was in his thirties.
JM: Late twenties or something. Oh thirties. Yes. Yes.
SN: You know.
JM: Yes.
SN: But he was older than we were.
JM: Yes.
SN: And proper RAF type, you know. Had a handlebar moustache.
JM: And all the rest of it. Yes.
SN: Yes. And he’d, and we saw nothing of him because we were, there were five of us including him.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he of course he was an —
JM: An officer. And he was in the officer’s mess. In the —
SN: The other four of us were NCOs.
JM: Yes. NCOs.
SN: In our own mess. Ordinarily someone would have had, a pilot would have had something to do with us but he was, he didn’t want to be there.
JM: No. That’s right.
SN: And he, I don’t think he really knew our names. He, and so, we really saw, we saw nothing of him except we would, you know, get in the aircraft and we’d get out.
JM: Yeah. That’s right.
SN: Except for one. We went to a place called Long Marston which is up, just out of Stratford.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And this was for a, sort of, pre-operational thing to work out with the crew and we flew every day.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Cross country’s and things and we saw one night he came. We were at the flights. The flights is where the aircrew wait to get on, to get off.
JM: Yes.
SN: And he came out of the flights where we were and suggested that we come and have a beer.
JM: And everybody —
SN: So, we did this to wherever it was. We went from the flights and he had he must have [pause] I don’t know how we got there. He had a little Austin convertible.
JM: Convertible.
SN: Thing. And he, I think he either had family or him, beside him. And we sat around with him for an hour in the pub and the only thing I remember about it was that he had a dog and the dog was a Spaniel. And the dog would drink beer. The dog drank beer and we sat and we had a beer and he was friendly. But I don’t think he — he didn’t intend to stay and he didn’t stay.
JM: Didn’t stay.
SN: They took him. They took him back to where he came from.
JM: Back to where he came from. Ok. So, he disappeared down the thing. Down the track. But the rest of you stayed together though at this point. So who was your navigator?
SN: Well we had a little, a little crash. A little accident.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which I deal with there when the aircraft went off the end of the runway.
JM: Runway.
SN: And it broke the leg of the wireless operator, I think. A big tall fellow named Hurst.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the crew packed up then. I think. Now I’m I don’t know which happened first.
JM: First. Yeah.
SN: Whether we had this, this [pause] this accidental crash. Whether we had that and then he was sent off or whether he was sent off when was just finishing up I don’t know.
JM: No.
SN: We never knew. We never saw him. They never said anything. They just called us in and they said, ‘Now, we’re disbanding this crew.’
JM: Crew.
SN: ‘And we’re posting you to other squadrons.’
JM: Squadrons. Yeah.
SN: To squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Ok and so and from there you, that’s when you went to 405.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. Ok. And so you were landing. You joined 405. How long, how long were you at OTU? August September ’42.
SN: I was about three months.
JM: About three.
SN: A good three months.
JM: Ok. So, you were posted to 405. What? About December. November. December or —
SN: No. October.
JM: October. Ok.
SN: Yeah.
JM: October.
SN: I think.
JM: ’42.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Ok. And so here and a couple of little experiences in 405.
SN: Well we went, I went. When I went to squadron I was on squadron for a long time. Longer than most people.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I came in with my kit and there was a note for me and it said something like “Welcome Clair.”
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when you come to the, wherever the, what do you call it? Not a dormitory. We were quartered in an old college.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he said, when you, “When you come to the quarters come and see me. Stuart.”
JM: Stuart.
SN: And it was Stuart Clark who was from my little town.
JM: Town. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Right.
JM: Yes.
SN: And so, I went up and he and the navigator who was a fella called Elmer [Bulman] from [unclear] Nevada. And they were playing Battleships and so we talked about things and Stuart said, ‘Look,’ he said, ‘We need an air gunner. You come with us.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: In our crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I was lucky.
JM: You were lucky. Yes. So that’s it. You knew the pilot because you had Stuart there as that.
SN: Yes. He was the navigator.
JM: Oh sorry. He was the navigator. Yeah.
SN: And he went to see the —
[phone ringing]
SN: Excuse me a second while I see to that.
[recording paused]
SN: Yes. And so he went to the pilot and said, ‘Look I’ve got —
JM: He went to the pilot. Yeah. Went to the pilot.
SN: And I was in.
JM: The pilot’s name? I should have it.
SN: Weber.
JM: Weber. That’s right.
SN: W E B E R. So I was in.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And so then you went off and started to do your ops.
SN: We —
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: We were, what we did first is we —
JM: You got linked with —
SN: We were at Topcliffe up in Yorkshire. We had to do, we had to convert. It was called conversion at that time.
JM: Conversion. That’s right. Yes. Yes.
SN: Which was from, we had, they had been on Wellingtons.
JM: Wellingtons.
SN: And the squadron converted to Halifaxes so it was this period of people getting used to this new aircraft.
JM: Halifax.
SN: So that went on for a time. And then maybe a month later. Sometime in November they they were losing a lot of people with this. Losing a lot of shipping with the subs.
JM: Subs yeah.
SN: And they’d lent us to Coastal Command.
JM: Coastal Command.
SN: To cover during the time the North African invasion force went down.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And so we were sent down to Southampton to do this, this thing and we spent most of the winter there.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Doing these —
JM: Patrols.
SN: Patrols. Yes.
JM: So you weren’t actually bombing. You were doing surveillance.
SN: It was called air sea warfare.
JM: Yeah.
SN: ASW. I think. And you were looking for, you went out on, it was called a square search and you went out. They were great long things that would go from ten to twelve hours. Went down off the Scilly Islands and Bishop’s Rock and somewhere. A point on the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay. Whatever it was.
JM: Was.
SN: Depending on what they had decided that day.
JM: That day.
SN: At the briefing where everything is. Where you should go.
JM: Go.
SN: And you flew this course square and back. And you flew fairly low. A thousand feet or something and you looked for submarines.
JM: Submarines yeah.
SN: And evidence of them you see.
JM: Yeah. A bit — sort of a wake from the conning tower.
SN: Yes. There was a great deal of that.
JM: Yes.
SN: It was a separate — Coastal Command it was called. We were lent Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Coastal Command, all through the war, and Australia. Here as well.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Operated all through the war doing just that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was the —
JM: Yeah. So how many [pause] how many missions would you have done in Coastal Command do you think? Roughly.
SN: I can’t remember. You got — what they did is they, they took three of these [pause] ops or whatever you want to call them.
JM: Call them. Yeah.
SN: They took three of these for one op.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Three patrols if you want to call them that.
JM: Yeah. Three patrols were equal to one op in the —
SN: That’s right.
JM: The bureaucrats eyes.
SN: That’s how they did it.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: I don’t remember just what. Just how many there were. There wouldn’t have been all that many. The weather was pretty duff.
JM: Yeah. So —
SN: During that period so you would be stood down quite often, you know.
JM: Down quite often.
SN: And it was, there is nothing more boring than [laughs] [that sort of?] exercise
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I guess we had. We thought we saw evidence of a sub and we dropped our depth charges once. We thought we saw oil on the surface. And when they came up to charge their batteries and when they did this [pause] the oil — they would dive and they would send up several gallons of oil.
JM: Oil.
SN: So that —
JM: Created a bit of an oil slick.
SN: And you’ll see the oil slick.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the object was that the attacking aircraft would say, ‘We got him. We saw the oil,’ and he was — they sunk.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And of course, it hadn’t that at all.
JM: At all. No. Because they were in fact just doing it as part of their diving.
SN: Yeah
JM: Part of their diving process, so to speak. Yeah.
SN: We had one, I guess — two close encounters. One was [pause] one was that, was with, on these patrols they were so long that you had to carry excess tanks for excess fuel.
JM: Excess fuel.
SN: And that meant that you had the — they had of course to change tanks and you had to watch. The engineer had to watch the gauges to make sure that he changed, while one was still operating.
JM: Operating.
SN: To the new one.
JM: The new one. Yeah.
SN: And in this one case he forgot.
JM: Forgot.
SN: Whatever he was doing and the pilot fortunately noticed this and he said, ‘Mac,’ he said, ‘Change tanks.’ And he made a tremendous huge leap and did it and by that time we were down low enough and I wondered why we were this low that I could see the whitecaps on the waves.
JM: Waves.
SN: Yeah. So we were down maybe roof height by that time [laughs] and it sort of laboured its way up.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And the other one I describe in the book when we attacked the German —
JM: Yes.
SN: E-boats.
JM: E-boats. Yeah.
SN: In the [pause] it’s the harbour near, near Biarritz.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And they threw up a lot of stuff.
JM: Yes.
SN: And we —
JM: You got some flak out of that didn’t you?
SN: I don’t remember whether we did or not. We might have but it — we probably did because you could see the puffs and things.
JM: Yeah.
SN: But the sailors. I shocked them. They were out sunbathing on the deck [laughs] so we were close enough and I swept the decks of this thing.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you could see great activities going on there.
JM: Yes.
SN: But of course they had enough stuff there that they could have blown us out if —
JM: Out of the sky. But you got away before they managed to get to them. Yeah. So —
SN: Yes because I think you you could say our attack —
JM: Was totally unexpected. Yes.
SN: Was aborted.
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: And depth charges wouldn’t really have done anything.
JM: Done anything.
SN: That much harm.
JM: Much harm.
SN: They told us later.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So, all up you were doing this for about —
SN: For the winter.
JM: For the winter. Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: So, through to early ’43.
SN: Yes. Till maybe it would have been about March.
JM: March yeah. And then you resumed with 405 then.
SN: It would have been March. Yes. It would have been the end of February.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Early March. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So you resumed with 405.
SN: Yes. So the Squadron. You see we never changed. Coastal Command is — they’re painted white grey.
JM: Yeah you were.
SN: And with us we just —
JM: Stayed black.
SN: Left it and stayed black.
JM: Yeah. And so how long were you back with 405?
SN: This was 405.
JM: Sorry.
SN: The whole squadron.
JM: Yes but with 405 base.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: Yes. To Bomber Command because you were down in Southampton.
SN: Yes we were.
JM: With Coastal Command.
SN: We were lent to Coastal Command.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Then we returned to —
JM: Bomber Command.
SN: The end of February we returned to —
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bomber Command.
JM: To Bomber Command. To —
SN: To Topcliffe which was in Yorkshire.
JM: Yes. So, and so from here you then went on. Started to do some actual bombing raids from here.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: We did, we did several bombing raids from Topcliffe at that time. Maybe three or four or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And one of them was Stuttgart which was where I shot down a Messerschmitt 109.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And any comments in terms of, you know, how close he was before you were able to see him and get, get, you got on to him before he got on to you or was he trying to get to you but your pilot managed to get away. Get at an angle where he was ineffective but you got him or what?
SN: He came up behind and I saw him. And I gave, when he got within range I gave the pilot evasive action and the pilot did it in classic fashion.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when he was close enough. Six hundred yards. Not all that long. I got a good, a good shot at him.
JM: Yes.
SN: He was coming up like that you see and he, by this time had started to fire at us but he was, he didn’t hit us.
JM: Hit us because the pilot had already started the changing.
SN: He’d already started and he didn’t touch us at all.
JM: Touch us. Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Yeah. And he then went above us and started to turn around and fell.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s how you know you’d had a — you’d scored.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: Yes. So it was confirmed hit for you.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: But I couldn’t see where I was until he was —
JM: Coming past you more or less.
SN: Went down. He was off.
JM: Yes. Yes. I see. And so, and so that, was that was Stuttgart raid. And any other things stand out from these raids at this point?
SN: No. They were —
JM: They were.
SN: They were all on —
JM: Sort of routine.
SN: What was called Happy Valley.
JM: Valley. Yeah. Over the Ruhr. Yeah. Yeah. But routine as such and just —
SN: That might have been a period of maybe three weeks or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I’ve forgotten.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then we were transferred to Pathfinder Command.
JM: Pathfinders. Yeah. That’s right. Yes.
SN: Which was down at Gransden Lodge.
JM: Lodge. Gransden Lodge. Yeah. And so, this would have been March.
SN: It was March 13th was when I shot the aircraft down.
JM: Right. Ok. March 13. Ok. So then would that be later March then that you went to Gransden Lodge? That the Pathfinder.
SN: Yes. Or the 1st of April. I don’t know which.
JM: Right.
SN: It wasn’t long.
JM: Yeah.
SN: We just, we just did maybe two or three ops.
JM: Yeah. Ops. Yeah. Yeah. And the decision to move to Pathfinders. What, what’s the story there?
SN: Well 405 was the oldest Canadian bomber squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which had been operating on the [ unclear] maybe a year in Bomber Command in what was called 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Group. Yeah.
SN: And because it was the, I suppose, and I’m guessing here because it was the oldest squadron and had the most experience it was the one selected to go to the Pathfinder group.
JM: Pathfinders.
SN: And also, I guess because the CO was quite a remarkable guy. A fella named Johnnie Fauquier and he was a force in himself and he —
JM: Yes. Yes.
SN: Because he was brought back.
JM: Back.
SN: As the head of the squadron and we were sent down as a part of 8 Group.
JM: Yes. But was it the commanders that came to you and said to your pilot, Weber and say, ‘Right, your crew’s a good crew – ’
SN: No. No.
JM: You’re going over to Pathfinders or —
SN: No. Oh no. Nobody was asked anything.
JM: No. No. I’m not asked but just said, ‘Right —
SN: No.
JM: Said to Weber.
SN: There was nothing. They just took the squadron.
JM: They just took it.
SN: As it was with Coastal Command.
JM: Right.
SN: Took the squadron.
JM: Right. The whole squadron. Yeah. Ok. Ok. So, and so no one had any choice in the matter. Everyone had to just comply.
SN: That’s right.
JM: Basically. Yeah. Ok. So [pause] so then began your time at Gransden Lodge and — how many — you did a lot of ops in that time.
SN: Yes. Yes.
JM: From Gransden Lodge.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now I was, it was quite a time from October to January of forty — January of ‘44 I believe.
JM: Yeah. Ok. Well if the squadron moved over in March/April ’43.
SN: In other words I was with the squadron from —
JM: Squadron from —
SN: October of ‘43 to January of ’44.
JM: Yes, but you said that the squadron moved.
SN: Well in that time it was in Bomber Command to Coastal Command to Bomber Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: To Pathfinder Command.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. But what we had there before was that you [pause] you moved back [pause] to you had your Coastal Command and then —
SN: We went back to Bomber Command.
JM: You went back to there and that’s when you did your, you said the 13th of March.
SN: Yes.
JM: Was when you did your raid on Stuttgart.
SN: Yes.
JM: And you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And that was when you were back at Bomber Command.
SN: That’s right.
JM: That’s right. And so that’s why you were initially indicating to me that it was perhaps late March, early April that the squadron moved to —
SN: That’s right. Moved to Pathfinder Command. 8 Group.
JM: To Pathfinder Command. Yeah. In April ‘43. So, in fact you were part of Pathfinder from, roughly, early April ’43 right through to —
SN: To January.
JM: To January ’44.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s right. That makes sense. So would you have had leave at any stage? You must have had some periods of leave in between all these bits and pieces.
SN: Yes. We had a lot of leave. We had a week every six weeks.
JM: Yeah. And just before we get into Pathfinders you know, any of the, I don’t, I’m not looking for a sort — because you’ve had so many raids with, or ops with Pathfinders we’ll just pick on a couple I guess but just backtracking up until there you’d had periods of leave and what, did you have a regular places you went to when you were on leave or did you try —
SN: London.
JM: Always London.
SN: Usually. Yes.
JM: Yes. And did you have a particular place there that you always went to for accommodation or did you do different places? Or —?
SN: Different places. Yes.
JM: Right and —
SN: And usually with the, with the crew or at least two of us.
JM: With the crew basically went all together.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yeah. So, so, Weber the pilot went with you and —
SN: No. He was English.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, of course, went home.
JM: He went home. Yeah.
SN: And I had a particular, my particular pal was a wireless operator.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was a fellow called Rickard.
JM: Yes.
SN: And the engineer.
JM: Yes.
SN: Who was called MacLean.
JM: Yes.
SN: So either usually the two of us but sometimes three —
JM: Yes.
SN: Would go on leave together.
JM: Together. Right.
SN: And we went to Ireland once. To Dublin. Which was interesting.
JM: Did you have to go in civvies for that? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: You changed at the border. At a place called Larne. You left your uniform and got, they gave you a civilian suit and off you went. It was the, the, what I suppose the most attractive feature of it was that there was no food rationing and you could get all steak and eggs and bacon and what have you.
JM: Whatever you wanted. Yes.
SN: Yes.
JM: Which made a change.
SN: Which was rather pleasant.
JM: Yes.
SN: For a few days.
JM: Yes. That’s right. Yes. So, it’s what I think a lot of chaps ultimately ended up doing is having a little excursion to Ireland. I think probably just for the sake of getting the food.
SN: Yes. Indeed. Indeed.
JM: Yes. That’s right. So, no other particular events stand out from when you were up onto this point. When you were on leave. Just all, just the usual sort of pubs and shows and —
SN: Pubs and shows and girls.
JM: Girls.
SN: You see [laughs]
JM: Yeah. Yes. Ok. So, looking at Pathfinders. What particular missions or ops do you want to highlight?
SN: I think, I think for Pathfinders, of course, the people who are most affected are the pilots and navigators and bomb aimers. For the gunners and wireless ops it’s really, it’s the same. It’s pretty much the same drill. The only difference is with Pathfinders you are continuously training.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There is very little time off so to speak. There is a training exercise every day you’re not on ops so it’s, it’s a pretty full on thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: I guess there is another interesting thing about it is, of course, it was a pretty impromptu [pause] I was going to say it was a pretty impromptu move and we were moved and quartered in the village. In amongst the village.
JM: Yes.
SN: The huts and things were all in this village.
JM: Yeah. So, houses were basically just requisitioned to be your accommodation.
SN: No. The village was there and the village was operating in the same way.
JM: Yes. But individual houses might have been requisitioned.
SN: No.
JM: No.
SN: They built, they built —
JM: So, you were billeted. The people lived there and you were all just billeted in —
SN: Yes. And we all —
JM: With families.
SN: We all lived in, what do you called them, huts. What are they called?
JM: Nissen. The Nissen huts.
SN: Nissen huts. Yes. We all lived in Nissen huts.
JM: Oh ok.
SN: The masses were in Nissen huts.
JM: So, they built Nissen huts within the village itself.
SN: Yes. We all lived in the village and we walked to the flights.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was about a quarter of a mile.
JM: A quarter of a mile away. Right. Yeah.
SN: Which was rather interesting. It was an interesting time.
JM: Yeah. For what reason?
SN: Well I think you — these villagers, we went back. We had a reunion there. And they regarded us as their people. You know, they knew us all in the pubs and how many didn’t come back. Who.
JM: Yes. And so, they basically felt a sense of protection.
SN: Yes.
JM: Enveloped you guys in a cloak of protection in a way to sort of provide you with, I guess, some stability or something like that is what they felt they were doing by providing that [pause]
SN: Yes. It was quite —
JM: Extending that friendship for want of a better word. Yeah.
SN: It was quite touching.
JM: Yes.
SN: When we went back.
JM: Yes. Yes. And — Ok. So you were doing regular training as well as going out on ops and what? Any, which ops in particular stand out for you?
SN: Well [pause] it’s like anything else I guess. You — it becomes a routine and it’s what you do and you — I think you become a little callous. And I think it takes, it took me a time after I was discharged. I found it [pause] An uncle of mine spoke to me and said, you know, ‘Have a little compassion.’ You became used to death. And people didn’t come back. And the casualty rate was horrendous.
JM: Yes.
SN: And you were, if you survived it’s what you do and it’s your [pause] you can get, you can accustom people to almost anything.
JM: That’s right.
SN: So, you know, we went out and did it and came back.
JM: Back.
SN: We laughed about it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Drank to the next man to go.
JM: Go.
SN: That was life.
JM: That was life. And what, what particular — I think there were a couple of particular ops that you mentioned in the book that you might just touch on briefly?
SN: Well I think we, we were first occupied with the Ruhr Valley. With Happy Valley.
JM: Happy Valley. Yeah.
SN: Then we went on to — we did one on Hamburg and we did some long runs. Pilsen, I think. And finally, Berlin. I went to Berlin seven times.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They [pause] we got shot up pretty badly several times and I guess what you remember is that your crew changes. Or ours did. For instance, the man I was telling you about. Stuart Clark.
JM: Yeah.
SN: He had a great friend in the squadron and instead of flying down to Coastal Command with us — we flew, you see. We just packed our stuff up and went. He decided to fly with his friend. You know, why not. And I remember he went off before we did. Went off. He just got over the horizon. Whack. The time of stress with an aircraft is when it takes its first turn because it’s got, not only the momentum of getting in but it has to make this turn.
JM: Turn.
SN: That’s it. And it didn’t and they were all killed. Blown up. So, we had an American with us and when the Americans came over and started to operate he went back to his, or went to — the American air force were happy to have them and most of them went back. And I guess the [pause] we lost crew members and I guess that’s what you remember. Who was the first one? [pause] We had, oh the first one we lost was unfortunately the navigator who was a very nice fella. We were good friends and we used to go to the pub at night. And we were at a place called Leeming in Yorkshire and instead of going around by the road we would cross the airfield and you had to be careful because of night flying [laughs] to do these things, you see.
JM: Yes.
SN: But it made it shorter. Anyway, we came back and I guess all had quite a bit to drink and we were at the top of our — they called them married quarters. They were cottages and we were in the two bedrooms upstairs. I, and Ricky, the wireless operator and Gibby. We got, we came back and we got to the top of the stairs and Gibby slipped and he rolled down these stairs and we got at the bottom and his head was bleeding. So, we got the ambulance and he was unconscious. There was nothing — his head was bleeding and the ambulance came and we never saw him again and I don’t know what happened to him. I presume that he perhaps died. And the other two I think I deal with in here. I might have dealt with Gibby as well. We had a thing which was called [pause] what did we call it? It’s [pause] lack of moral fortitude. LMF.
JM: Yeah.
SN: LMF. And that’s really quite a good story actually. We had two of our crew. One was over Essen. A fellow named Gordon Wood. Toronto. And he, how anybody could think of this when we’re over Essen and the bloody kite was —
JM: Bouncing around the —
SN: Bouncing because of the flak.
JM: Flak.
SN: Threw us [unclear ] and he, and we missed, we went over the —
JM: Target.
SN: Target. And we missed.
JM: Missed.
SN: We were off so we had to go around again. Do another thing. Because the bomb aim has to be straight and level to do this thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And when we started going around the second time he went to pieces and he, the pilot’s name was Tony. And he said, ‘Don’t go in there Tony. Don’t go in there. They’ll kill us,’ he said, ‘I want to go home and marry Mary,’ he said, ‘Don’t do this.’ He wept and so forth at the pilot, Tony. And Mac, the engineer, went down and take his intercom out and then they had to get him up and put him on — we had a little bench.
JM: Bench. Yeah.
SN: Across from the hatch and tied him up on the bench.
JM: Bench.
SN: And he came and we reported this when we came back that we had this man. The ambulance met him and I never saw him again or heard anything of him. Then the other one was — we were — I don’t know where it was. Nuremberg. Hamburg. I’ve forgotten. Anyway, we’d got an American who was a mid-upper gunner and they did a stupid thing. They thought instead most attacks by fighter aircraft come in from the bottom.
JM: Bottom.
SN: And they don’t see because the rear gunner just sees a hundred and eighty degrees so they said, ‘We’ll put a thing like a tear drop in the bottom of the aircraft.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the mid-upper gunner will lie there and he had no guns, will lie there with his intercom, on his belly and report these aircraft that he sees. Stupid thing to have done. And he’d been alright before that but he, they only left the thing on for maybe two or three weeks.
JM: Weeks.
SN: And he went bananas.
JM: He went bananas.
SN: And he saw aircraft all over the sky and he gave evasive action and we’re pitching around [laughs] trying to find these until it finally occurred —
JM: Trying to avoid these imaginary aeroplanes.
SN: That there weren’t any aircraft.
JM: Yes.
SN: No one else saw it.
JM: No.
SN: So, he had to be disconnected, and put on the thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we never saw him again.
JM: Again.
SN: But after the war I learned what happened. And what had happened was they took these people, gave them whatever help they could.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They sent them back to Canada.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And then they gave them a choice. They said, ‘Now we will not discharge you.’ For dishonourable —
JM: Dishonourable discharge.
SN: Put this on your conduct thing.
JM: Yeah.
SN: You will have a choice. You can either join the army or the navy and carry on with the war.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: Or we will give you a medical discharge.
JM: Discharge. Yeah.
SN: You have a choice and it always seemed to me that that was very fair. And nobody ever reported and said these people were cowards. They were medically —
JM: Unstable or anything like that.
SN: Or anything like that. So it was one of the good war stories.
JM: Good things. Yeah.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. Now around in this period of time though in September ‘43 you discovered by accident shall we say in as much you and your good friend Drew were in London on, I presume on one of your periods of leave.
SN: Yes. I’d forgotten him but he was, yes.
JM: Yeah. And that he was sitting reading the newspaper and reading the latest list of honours and said that, informed you that you had been awarded the —
SN: DFM.
JM: DFM.
SN: Yes. That’s right.
JM: And the, I haven’t got the exact words of the citation in front of me but it was in terms of a, in recognition of a number of —
SN: Yeah.
JM: Ops.
SN: I remember I said something like, he said, ‘Read this,’ and I said something like, ‘Yeah. They’re going to knight me tomorrow,’ or something. And he said, ‘No. You silly bastard,’ he said, ‘It’s you.’
JM: It’s you. That’s right. But did you was it just simply for a sequence of raids or did you actually get told something?
SN: It was a sequence I think.
JM: Yeah. But did you, can you recall.
SN: The citation.
JM: The sequence that they were actually referring to in terms of particular difficulties on those particular raids or —
SN: No. It was a general citation it seems to me. As I remember it.
JM: Right. So were other members of the crew awarded DFMs?
SN: No. Nobody.
JM: So how did they seem?
SN: Only me.
JM: Do you know why they singled you.
SN: I think it was the aircraft that I shot down.
JM: So, going back to —when? So —
SN: Yes. it went back to —
JM: So, it goes back to the March.
SN: Went back to March.
JM: March. When you shot down the Messerschmitt.
SN: That’s right.
JM: In Stuttgart.
SN: That’s right. I think so, yes. I think that was what it was about because I was the only one.
JM: Yeah. Ok. So, so you didn’t get any further clarification in terms of the citation or anything like that. The commanding officers.
SN: There is a citation. Yes. And the citation [pause] I had or I probably have somewhere here but God knows where I would find it.
JM: Yes.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Right. And then you lined up and received your award from King George.
SN: Yes. I went to Buckingham Palace and lined up with a lot of other people.
JM: And did he have any words to you do you recall? Or did he just walk along and just pin and kept walking.
SN: No. He was on a little dais in the palace and you went up one by one, up just a little, maybe that high or something and the king was slightly higher.
JM: He was slightly elevated by about eighteen inches.
SN: Yes.
JM: Or something like that.
SN: He was there.
JM: Yeah.
SN: With a sort of a lectern or table that had the awards.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That were being passed to him by someone.
JM: An assistant on the side.
SN: Yes. And you were — before you went up they put a little tin thing or something on your tunic.
JM: Yes. On your tunic, yeah, so they had —
SN: And you went up. He shook hands with you.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And said something like I suppose, ‘Well done,’ or something like that and hung these on the thing.
JM: Thing. Yeah.
SN: And then you went.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It wasn’t, you know, he was there were maybe, I don’t how many. Let’s say there were a hundred or something.
JM: Yeah.
SN: There were a lot of them anyway.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And that was it, you know. He wouldn’t have had enough time to have said —
JM: Too much to each one. No.
SN: To anyone really because it was a line.
JM: A line yeah.
SN: That went through.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It was a job he had to do. Yeah. That was it.
JM: So then did you have an afternoon tea afterwards and did you talk with any of the other recipients?
SN: No. That was it. That was it. No.
JM: You just received it and you were out the door.
SN: You were told to appear at the palace. You had an order written on the thing. At such and such a time. And you came and they said, ‘Yes, that’s you. Here it is. You go in there. You go there. Get in the queue.’
JM: Almost a sausage line.
SN: Yeah [laughs]
JM: Right. Ok. So so, at this stage we’re getting you’ve been doing the various ops etcetera so you’re building up the number of ops you’re doing. We get towards the end.
SN: Yes.
JM: Did you know you were getting — because by this time, where are we up to? About, January ’44 so this is getting to —
SN: We’re in October I guess.
JM: Yeah. October ’44.
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes.
SN: And at that stage we [pause] our pilot and all except two of us in the crew.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Ricky and myself —
JM: Yeah.
SN: Had completed the magic number.
JM: Number.
SN: Which was forty five.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And so, they [pause] they had done their —
JM: Completed their —
SN: Completed their second tour.
JM: Tour.
SN: And there were the two of us who had not.
JM: So that was you and Ricky.
SN: Ricky. And Ricky went. Ricky decided that he had had enough and he didn’t really want to fly with a sprog pilot or somebody else. So, he said, ‘I really don’t care whether I have that Pathfinder badge or not. I’d rather be alive.’
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I stayed on to finish and I had three to finish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it took a while. November until I crashed because you had to find a crew that was short.
JM: Short.
SN: Of a rear gunner.
JM: Rear gunner. Yeah.
SN: To go with.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, I went with well they wanted to put, yes, they put you on this crew. Their man had [pause] I’ve forgotten — he’d fallen ill, I think. Whatever he had he wasn’t going to be able to fly again. So, I had, this fella, his name was McLennan. Canadian. So, I became their rear gunner.
JM: Gunner.
SN: For these three trips. And because I had been waiting around the weather was duff.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we went to Berlin three times.
JM: Right.
SN: And in the end, you’ve seen there. So, and they were three bad flights because I guess they were I guess a sprog crew to some degree. We got shot up very badly and we got lost. And then the last flight we got shot up. The second last flight we were shot up pretty badly. And we were quite lucky. It burnt up the wireless operator’s notes and the navigator’s maps. The whole thing. [unclear] and it was pretty well peppered. So, then the last flight —
JM: So, did you use the same plane? Or did you — or the ground crew repaired it enough. Or did you use a different plane for that? For then? This last flight?
SN: They repaired it.
JM: They repaired it.
SN: They repaired it. I’m sure about that but I should say I don’t know.
JM: Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: That would be a better answer.
JM: Yeah. Yeah.
SN: And then the last flight we, the last flight I made which was the forty fifth for me. I was — that would finish me off and it very nearly did.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And we got, we got shot up again as we came off the target.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And it was the night before, we were attacked by a fighter. The last night. I’ve forgotten if we were or not. Certainly, we were the second, it was an ME110 that very nearly got us. And we were lost. And the Met people had made a mistake in that they believed that a front was going to come in. They knew this but they believed that there would be ample time for people to get back from Berlin before this front came in. It was a heavy front. Well, they were wrong. And the front came in earlier and aircraft at that time when you’re doing blind landings come down in concentric circles.
JM: Yeah.
SN: It’s like —
JM: So, you stacked up.
SN: A for apple and B for Bertie.
JM: Yeah.
SN: X for X-ray and they’re in a line you see.
JM: In a line. Yeah.
SN: And they come down and you have a different altitude so they don’t get.
JM: Running into each other. Theoretically. Yes.
SN: Yes. And they bring them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: The operator.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Brings them down.
JM: Down. Yeah.
SN: And the last circle, and when they do this they find the marker that makes the, what is it called [pause] when you have a blind landing you’re looking at your instruments. I’ve forgotten the name. It’s in there anyway. You have to pick up this bar and come in.
SN: Yeah.
JM: And if you miss that you’ve got to go around ‘til you get it again because you’re coming down.
SN: Down.
JM: They’re bringing you down on that bar. They have given you your altitude that you should be at.
SN: Yeah.
JM: They’re following you down.
SN: The pilot is just blind flying into this. So, we had been up. We were lost. We were late and we’d been up a long time and they were bringing us in and the pilot missed the bar and we had to go around again. And by this time, we were out of fuel and he knows we’re very nearly out of fuel and I know that we’re in trouble because I can see the treetops going by the turret.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And I did the luckiest thing I ever did in my life. There was a belt about that wide.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Webbing.
JM: Webbing belt. Yeah.
SN: With buckles on it.
JM: Strapped you in.
SN: And it was on either side and I put that on.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Locked it there and that saved me.
JM: That saved you. That’s what saved you. Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, you came and so having seen the treetops. It wasn’t too long after that that before —
SN: It was just minutes after that. Yeah. And the aircraft broke off, you see. The tail broke off.
SN: Broke off.
JM: Yeah. So, you were saved but the rest were not.
SN: That’s right. Well, the pilot came through but in a very bad state. And I found him. And I think I say there, things were blowing up. We had failsafe stuff. And it was burning. And I was not in a very good shape at the time. It had knocked me out. I was bleeding.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in a stupor I think.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And he, he was lying with this stuff popping off and I thought I should move him back a little and I took him by the legs and his legs started to come off and the bone appeared. I couldn’t do that. And I got — we had a little packet of stuff and I don’t know whether I shot him with a hypo. Certainly, I had, when they found me I had the packet but what I did with it I have no idea. In any event when they came back they found me wandering around with this packet. This kid found me who became a friend of mine. And they brought the ambulance out it was thick heavy fog, and packed I and McLennan in and he, he was not conscious through this, through all this, I don’t think. Maybe he was but he didn’t seem to be.
JM: Seem to be.
SN: To me. And he and I went in together and it seemed to me that I wasn’t sure whether, I think he, I think he recognised me as we went in. And then I was in this hospital in Ely maybe a week or ten days. I’ve forgotten. And I asked, when I came too the following day, for McLennan. He was a nice fellow. And he said he died when he got there. So, I was the only one who survived.
JM: Yes, and so do you regret having made the decision to have, to complete those other three ops? Do you feel you would have was there what was the motivation in the first place to do, to do the three? Was it simply that you wanted to have the completed tour or what?
SN: It’s, I signed on for to do the tours.
JM: To do the tours. Yeah.
SN: And I wanted it done. Yes.
JM: You wanted to do it.
SN: It was something I wanted to do.
JM: Do. Yeah. So —
SN: And Ricky, whom I met again after the war, who my particular chum he always regretted that he didn’t.
JM: Right. Yeah. There you go. So people who, despite the fact that it was very very difficult for you for those last three. One thing just very briefly. Did, in Pathfinder, did Gransden Lodge, did any of the various squadrons intermingle at any time or did you stay very much within your own squadron?
SN: Completely within our own squadron.
JM: Within your own squadron. Because, I mean Australian, you know, there were various other, you know like —
SN: Yes, we had all sort of people. Australians, British.
JM: Yeah, yeah, but there was a 156 Squadron at Gransden Lodge too, I think, from knowledge but there was never any intermingling or anything like that.
SN: No. De were the only ones.
JM: You were the only ones.
SN: During my time.
JM: Your time, yeah. Right. Ok. Yeah.
SN: And we didn’t. Yes. No. We didn’t. I didn’t know anybody from any other squadron.
JM: Right. No. Right.
SN: You know the top squadron chief, they would have gone to group headquarters.
JM: Headquarters.
SN: And they knew —
JM: What was going on.
SN: Other people from the other squadrons.
JM: Yeah. Squadrons yeah.
SN: But not at my level.
JM: No.
SN: We never saw anybody.
JM: No. Right. And did — so you were in hospital and then I presume you went on leave and went perhaps to rehab. Like a rehabilitation.
SN: No. I went. I got out of hospital and went back to the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: That was in January.
JM: January ’45.
SN: Yes. And I got back to the squadron on Christmas Eve. I think it was.
JM: Oh. Ok. So that was Christmas Eve ’44.
SN: ’43. ’43.
JM: ‘44 wouldn’t it be?
SN: No. ‘43.
JM: Ok.
SN: In January of ‘44 I was posted.
JM: Yes.
SN: From the squadron.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To a RAF gunnery school for gunnery instruction instructor’s course.
JM: Yeah. Ok. That was in January ‘44. Yeah. Ok. And so how long were you there for?
SN: I would think it would be about a month but it might have been six weeks.
JM: Right.
SN: The only thing I can remember about it is that it was a RAF school at a place called Manby. And they spent all their Sunday, or most of their Sunday on the parade square where they were inspection after inspection and I was by that time commissioned. I noticed that they had a most extraordinary [pause] before they started this buggering about.
JM: Yeah.
SN: They called out, ‘Fall out the Jews and infidels.’ [laughs]
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true.
JM: Right.
SN: It’s true. And thereupon the head of the WAAFs who was shaped rather like a large trout and had a moustache bigger than me and was obviously Jewish and she would fall out and the other one who fell out was an Indian. Indian Indian. A little squadron leader of some sort and he, I guess, was a Hindu or — I don’t know what it was. But I thought this is not a bad lark so the next Sunday I fell out with them. And no one —
JM: Queried it.
SN: No one ever queried me. I think they simply assumed well he’s Jewish.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And well that was the end and I had my Sunday.
JM: Well there you go. That was a way to get a Sunday off wasn’t it? And so, what happened after? Did you complete this course? Or —
SN: Yes.
JM: Yes. And what happened after that?
SN: Then I went back to 6 Group which was the Canadian group.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Up in Yorkshire and I instructed. I guess till the end of the year. Something like that. I’ve forgotten how long it was and then I was posted back to Canada.
JM: Right.
SN: To — they had a huge base near Vancouver.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Which was for [pause] for the Far Eastern campaign. Well the Far Eastern campaign was cut short at Hiroshima.
JM: That’s right. Yeah.
SN: So, nobody went anywhere.
JM: Anywhere.
SN: But there were about five thousand of us there and we were all given Joe jobs of one sort or another to keep us occupied. And that was for I guess for six months in ‘44. And then in August I was discharged.
JM: So that was August.
SN: 1945.
JM: ‘45 yeah.
SN: That’s ’45. Yes.
JM: ’45. Discharged. Yeah and —
SN: The only thing that I did during those six months, you know — there were really so many of us was I went over to Victoria to sell Victory Bonds for a month and this was rather fun. The people who were selling the bonds who were business men in the city I guess and were not the always the same people. And they would pick me up and we would go to factories, plants, offices and they would make a little spiel and I would get up and talk for, you know, maybe a minute or two and then we’d go on to another place.
JM: I see. Well that was different.
SN: Yes. That was the only thing I did when I was there.
JM: And this was when you were in.
SN: In this place. At Boundary Bay it was called.
JM: Near Vancouver.
SN: Yes. It was so bad that in the end the last job I had was to teach people who — no —I did do some work out there. I flew in Libs. They had Liberators.
JM: Liberators. Yeah.
SN: On instructing for three months which was alright. We had something to do. But then this last thing I was teaching [pause] what was it called? When an aircraft is is [pause] has to ditch. Ditching procedure.
JM: Ditching procedure. Yeah.
SN: And I had a sergeant and I had three other fellows and I had to give, I thought I was rather badly used and I had to give — I think I had to work two days a week. That was all I did.
JM: Did.
SN: But —
JM: Put a crew through this ditching procedure training. Goodness me.
SN: And there was hundreds of — well I don’t know how many.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Who were doing [laughs]
JM: Same thing.
SN: The same thing but there we were.
JM: And when you are discharged in August ‘45 presumably you then head back to the farm. To the family.
SN: Yes. I went back to the family and I went down and got myself discharged.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And in September, 1st of September I guess, I went to university.
JM: Right. And there you did, what?
SN: I did General Arts. And I was there for five years.
JM: Five years. Right. And?
SN: I got an MA.
JM: An MA right.
SN: In History and English Literature.
JM: Yeah. And where and then what? What —
SN: Well I then found [pause] I met a remarkable man who — I really started out to take law and I should have done that. That made sense. It was a profession. But he was an historian. Brilliant man. World scholar. Wonderfully — looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Sorry?
SN: He looked like Charles Laughton.
JM: Right. Ok. And what was —
SN: A wonderful voice.
JM: And what was this chap’s name.
SN: He was a history prof. His name was Charles Lightbody.
JM: Right.
SN: And I was quite fascinated by him and he became a friend of mine and I thought well I would do that and so I —
JM: You’d become a historian.
SN: I ended up with an MA and I realised that there really wasn’t anything I could do but teach and I wasn’t — I didn’t think there was really be much of a teacher. So, I, in the meantime had written. There were three examinations which you had to pass for Foreign Affairs. One was a four hour written hour written exam. Or was it six. I think it was six. It was a half day anyway and then you had to go for an oral examination with people. And then you had a third thing. I’ve forgotten what it was and then you, if you were lucky this was across the country and if you made it you were, you got the appointment. They took you in to the Foreign Service. Well I had written this, I guess, in the spring. I heard nothing from them. So, I had to think what I could do. So I applied for some scholarships and got a fellowship which was a scholarship down in New Orleans at Tulane University. So, I went down there. By this time, I was married but I went down by myself to see. And I was only there for a month, six weeks, something, when my appointment came through. But I was there long enough to realise that this was really not my —
JM: Cup of tea.
SN: Cup of tea. I was put, this was for a PhD and I was put to my chore — you had to teach part of the time was the Tulane football team. And Jesus. They [laughs] recruited these people from the villages and towns not because of their academic.
JM: Their academic ability.
SN: Oh no. That was not [laughs]
JM: They were recruited for their football ability.
SN: And I’m teaching European history to these fellas and they’re going [yawn] so —
JM: So, you were very pleased to have your posting come through.
SN: I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t hesitate a minute.
JM: You didn’t hesitate. You grabbed it with both hands and —
SN: That’s right.
JM: So then —
SN: Happily, ever after.
JM: And when did you actually start your posting. So, I presume you had to do some sort of orientation period but when did you officially start with the — so what is this called? The Canadian Diplomatic Corps is it. Or what was its proper title?
SN: Canadian Foreign Service.
JM: Canadian Foreign Service. Yeah.
SN: Really from the 1st of January.
JM: 1st of January ‘46 would it have been.
SN: No, it was after that.
JM: What are we up to?
SN: It was after Christmas. It was December. I think it was December 27th. Something like that.
JM: So, December 27th.
SN: It had to be that year.
JM: Yeah. So, when would this be. About ‘51.
SN: In Ottawa.
JM: Would it be ‘51? December ‘51 or ’50.
SN: It would be December 1950.
JM: 1950. right. Yeah. So, December 27 1950 and it was, did you say, Ottawa.
SN: Yes.
JM: Ottawa. And so that was where you’re —
SN: So, I spent thirty odd years.
JM: So was that a training — your initial training at Ottawa or that was your actual first posting as —what?
SN: It was a training.
JM: Training. Yeah.
SN: It was before the first posting.
JM: Posting. Yeah. And then where was your first posting?
SN: It was really in Latin America and Bogota but before that someone fell ill in Tokyo. And they needed to send someone out to —
JM: To Tokyo.
SN: This guy didn’t come or I’ve forgotten what it was. In any event they needed somebody and the Korean war was on. So, they were able to send somebody out with military you see.
JM: Right.
SN: They didn’t have to go through the procedure of sending them by sea.
JM: Right.
SN: Across the thing. It was a time factor. So, I flew over and I was there for six months.
JM: To — to —
SN: Tokyo.
JM: Tokyo.
SN: Yes. Things happened and I was kept on.
JM: Yeah. So that became your first —
SN: I suppose that it was my your posting.
JM: Even though, yeah, yeah.
SN: But it was a temporary assignment.
JM: Assignment. Yeah. Yeah. So then did you come back to Latin America after that?
SN: I came back to Ottawa. And then by that time they had posted me.
JM: Yeah.
SN: To Bogota.
JM: Bogota. Right.
SN: And I was, you know, in Ottawa for a couple months.
JM: While they sorted the paperwork out, I guess.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. So, Bogota and then and then you say thirty years moving around.
SN: Yes.
JM: Various embassies moving around the world.
SN: Yes. That’s right. Yeah.
JM: Presumably changing roles. Moving up into a higher role most of the time. So, what was your —
SN: Yes.
JM: So were you a —
SN: I went through the usual steps of third secretary. Second secretary. First secretary.
JM: Secretary.
SN: Counsellor. Minister.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And ambassador.
JM: Yeah.
SN: So, it was, I guess, about thirty three years. Something like this.
JM: Yeah. And where were you ambassador?
SN: I was [pause] I resigned or — I didn’t resign, I finished as ambassador to Ecuador.
JM: Right. And did you have any other ambassadorial post prior to Ecuador?
SN: I had another Head of Mission is what we called it.
JM: Right.
SN: I had a Head of Mission post before that. I was Canadian Commissioner in Cambodia.
JM: Right.
SN: Which is where I met Shirley.
JM: Right.
SN: And of course, that was an unfortunate thing in the sense of career in that divorce at that time was frowned on and I was unemployable because my then wife had to agree if I were to be posted and of course that was the last thing she was likely to do. And it was a long dragged out affair and very difficult for Shirley. However, we had this time in — well I went to National Defence College which was our half civilian and half military. I went as our departmental candidate. It was a year’s course for top executives so that was good. And then I went. I was farmed out from the department. I did a couple of years in the planning department of National Defence.
JM: Right.
SN: As their foreign affairs rep or advisor. Whatever you’d call it. And then I did two and a half years I think. A very strange business which was because one of my foreign affairs friends was the deputy and he brought me in and I headed up a research planning division in Indian Affairs.
JM: So what sort of, so this is the —
SN: This is when I had time out for divorce [laughs]
JM: So, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, ok. And that would have been a very interesting exercise as well.
SN: Yes, it was. I learned a great many things.
JM: Yes. I can imagine. Gosh. And then presumably the divorce finally got sorted and you were able to be reappointed as an ambassador then.
SN: The day, the day after, no. I didn’t. The day after our wedding we were posted to Washington.
JM: Washington. Right.
SN: And it was that quick.
JM: That quick. So, when was that. When were you married. What was your —
SN: It was September.
JM: September of —?
SN: Of [pause] We were at Washington for four years. 1978. 1974.
JM: 1974.
SN: We were married.
JM: Yeah.
SN: In September. And the following day —
JM: You were off to Washington.
SN: Off to Washington. And Shirley’s sister was there and my brother in law.
JM: And what was your role in Washington? You were attached to the embassy as what?
SN: As a counsellor.
JM: A counsellor. Right. Yeah. Ok. Yes. Oh well and so —
SN: You there you have —
JM: Yeah. And how do you feel that your air force experiences informed your diplomatic, the way you handled your diplomatic career in any way or or you never really thought about your air force time once you were in as a diplomat. I mean, recognising the fact you had many many roles as a diplomat that you, you know.
SN: Well I think it was useful to me in the sense that the things that I was doing. For instance when I was at national defence. When I was at National Defence College.
JM: Yeah.
SN: For a year and that’s, you know, we lived, at that time there there were only thirty two people and you eat, drink with those people every day for a year and it was useful to me, half of them were military.
JM: Right.
SN: To have —
JM: To have had that close quarter that — A — that background and, B — that close quarter living as you had had to have as part of war service.
SN: Yes. And when I was at plans it was useful because I knew people again. I was accepted. So when I was in Washington I did the political military thing for four years you see so I was always in close touch. So yes, it was useful.
JM: It was useful.
SN: Yeah.
JM: Yes. Well you have had, certainly had an incredibly varied life and when you look back to the fact you started off as a farm lad, for want of a better word of describing it.
SN: Farm kid.
JM: Which is not to put down people who run, who own and feed the nation from their farms but it’s just very different life and lifestyle to — and then, and I guess, as part of that you became a bit of a rebellious child and that rebelliousness came out in some of your early years. In your early air force training and ultimately it clicked and you changed tack and you became — you decided to accept.
SN: Go with the stream. Yes.
JM: Go with the stream and accept the discipline which was probably when you started doing well in your gunnery courses.
SN: Yes.
JM: And that’s when you felt you had a role to play and that was a turning point potentially there. And then as we say you just ultimately going through to then find a totally different course of life and become part of the Canadian Foreign Service for such an extensive thirty three years. That’s an incredibly long time. And were you, have you ever been given any recognition for that length of service from the Canadian Foreign Service.
SN: Oh yes. Yes. Yes.
JM: In what format?
SN: I have no misgivings. I — I’ve been well treated. I have no, it would have been nice to have gotten a little higher up the tree but that was the way it played out.
JM: Was there a system of formal recognition? Awards or anything. Were you given any awards at any time or —?
SN: No. We didn’t have any. We all have a medal or I assume we do. That we get for having served.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And you get a letter from the minister. The PM saying thank you.
JM: Thank you.
SN: And that’s it.
JM: Yeah.
SN: Now, unlike, and this has always been a grievance with, I think some people in the Commonwealth Foreign Services — the Americans, if you become an ambassador you take the title with you.
JM: Yeah. Like a —
SN: You were called that.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And the British usually knight their Heads of Mission and they can carry the title.
JM: Yeah.
SN: And Canadians, Australians or New Zealanders do not.
JM: Not.
SN: Yeah. So that bothered some people and of course it didn’t, it doesn’t bother most people because as long, so long as everyone else suffers with you [laughs]
JM: You’re not on your own in that circumstance.
SN: No. No.
JM: No.
SN: No.
JM: Well I think that you’ve been exceedingly generous with your time and we’ve covered a huge amount of ground there. Simply amazing set of experiences and I just thank you for it Clair. It’s just been really really wonderful and the fact that we’ve got this record now as part to help contribute to the knowledge base about Bomber Command personnel is so important. So, thank you very much for that.
SN: Alright. Well thank you. It’s taken a fair amount of your time.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextANuttingS170222TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Sinclair NuttingRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource02:16:42 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceJean MacartneyDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-02-22DescriptionAn account of the resourceSinclair Nutting Grew up in Canada and worked on the family farm before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 405 Squadron. After the war he emigrated to Australia.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandRoyal Canadian Air ForceSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.CanadaEngland--YorkshireGreat BritainIrelandIreland--DublinTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.19401941ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie Williams405 SquadronaircrewbombingcrashMe 109military disciplinePathfindersRAF Topcliffetrainingwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/304/3461/AMeehanJ150604.1.mp39dce0f625519d32dc660e2faf4b1b661Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceMeehan, JackJ MeehanDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Jack Meehan.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-04RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextMeehanTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentNB: Right. This is an oral history interview for the International Bomber Command Centre. I’m here with Jack Meehan at his home, Tauranga, New Zealand and the time is 14:00. My name is Nicky Barr, I’m IBCC Director. Thank you for agreeing to do this, Jack. It’s really important for us to make sure we record all your histories. Could you start off by telling me a bit about your life before Bomber Command?
JM: Before I went in the air force. Just an ordinary life. When I left college —when I was living in Wellington I went to Wellington Technical College and had three years there and my intention was to take up art. I was in the art classes. And at that time of course the word came out about the war and the beginning of the war and what you could do. Previously to that I was in the Territorial Army. I decided to do it as a hobby sort of thing or a novelty to get away at the weekend at various camps etcetera. And when the war broke out I was working for the Wellington, at the Wellington Railway Station and the government Railway. And in the early part of the war I used to do fire duty on the roof of the Wellington Railway Station. And eventually when they sent away the first lot of troops from Wellington there was five big boats, tourist boats, all arrived in Wellington Harbour and the first lot of troops were going off. Presumably, we thought, to Egypt. And I was on the roof of the Wellington Railway Station watching all these boats going out of the harbour and one of the boats was called the Aquitania. You probably would have heard about it but that was one of the boats and it just sort of stuck in my mind. And eventually, a couple of years later I was leaving Quebec to go from Quebec to England to join up with the Royal New Zealand — Royal Air Force over in England and there was only the one boat in the harbour, and lo and behold it was the Aquitania. And I went so strange. It turned out that, you know seeing it two or three years beforehand and leaving Wellington Harbour and here I was on it going over to Scotland. England and Scotland. So that’s getting back to just side-tracking a wee bit but it was just a coincidence. So with my days of working in the railway I couldn’t get away with the railway contingent going in the army so I eventually joined up in the air force. And I was at the age of twenty one years when I joined, joined the air force. We did the training in New Zealand, training at, first of all at Whenuapai Airport. And then we had six weeks training at Rotorua. We went on final leave from Rotorua and left in January 1942 and left from Waltham. Went from Waltham to San Francisco. That was our, we didn’t know at the time where we were going, we had no idea. We left and then went from [pause] arrived in San Francisco. Had four days holiday sort of thing and there was four, we were just walking around the town and we met up with four American who had been in hospital in [unclear] and were being invalided back from Guadalcanal. And they stopped us and we had a little yarn. And they said, ‘We were treated so well in New Zealand while we were there. Would you like to be our —’ what’s the word?
NB: Guests.
JM: Friends or whatever, ‘We’ll take you around San Francisco.’ And we went around various places. I remember one that always stuck in mind was the hotel. The Mark Hopkins Hotel at San Francisco which is on the top of a hill at San Francisco.
NB: Right.
JM: And that had a, the top of the hotel had a big bar. A big circular bar and in the centre of the bar itself which in turn revolved around while you were sitting there drinking. That was always in my memory. Eventually we had to be down by the railway station at a certain time. We were met there by a wing commander and said farewell to these boys that had taken us round and we never have seen or heard from that day onwards. Unfortunately, we never thought about addresses. And we left then from San Francisco to go to, to Vancouver. Made our way to Vancouver, then we stayed there at Vancouver for a couple of nights and then from Vancouver through the Rockies to Edmonton.
NB: Right.
JM: Had a week in Edmonton being fitted out with all our winter. Winter had arrived. It was January of course and we’d just arrived in a bit of snow etcetera which was the first time I’d ever seen snow because I’d never been in New Zealand, anywhere in New Zealand to see it. However, we had the — from then we finished in Vancouver — to Edmonton, rather. We journeyed then down to Calgary and we were stationed then at Calgary. At Number 2 Wireless School, Calgary. It was a university which had been taken over by the air force. Dormitory sleeping. Dormitories and everything were all in the one building. And we were there for about six months training at Number 2 Wireless School and we were, did all the wireless side of it there at Calgary. And then we went to a place called Dafoe, which was just a small place just out of Calgary where we did our training for shooting.
NB: Right.
JM: And after we finished at the [pause] come back to the Wireless School again and we went on, following on leave from Calgary across to Winnipeg and on down towards making our way to New York. On the way of course we called in at Niagara Falls etcetera. Had a couple of nights there touring around and we just had to be in, at Quebec, by a certain date and which was sort of freelancing. Taking in the country and the scenery etcetera and eventually arrived at Quebec. And we were billeted in a college there at Quebec getting fitted out for certain things that we had to have. And then leaving, as I say, from Quebec to Scotland on the Aquitania. Eventually we arrived in Scotland. Boarded the train in Scotland right down to Brighton. Our headquarters at this stage were going to be Brighton, Brighton. We stayed at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Brighton. Which I’d — we were there for a few weeks. Then training for doing wireless work etcetera. And then we were, sent me to various air force stations. We went, we went to Air Force Station Westcott where we had an OTU. Westcott. And into the hall and met in the hall with dozens of other crew who were eventually going to be crew members.
NB: What stage did you crew up, Jack?
JM: Well, I was just going to say —
NB: I’m sorry.
JM: From that stage we were just left to wander, talk, meet up with all the different other. We had one or two other nationalities with us as well. There were some English boys. Some were — I remember one from British Honduras. We had Australian ones, Canadians. But we were just left on our own for an hour or so just to wander around and talk to different ones. And we were told that during that time we were to meet up with your crew together. So the pilots of course, they were, they started off by picking who they thought they wanted to have for a, for a navigator, and then a bomb aimer.
NB: Right.
JM: And a wireless operator. They had to, they could pick out who they wanted. It didn’t matter who it was. Whether it was a New Zealander or Australian.
NB: Right.
JM: And once they’d all got had their respective crews up, respective members they all met together. They were all, particulars and everything were all taken and they were given a short talk and you were allocated to a hut and your crew sort, if he wasn’t an officer he would be with us. But if he was already appointed an officer like a pilot officer he would go off to the officer’s headquarters. Eventually when it would come to meeting up together. We’d all get together again. So that’s we went along and after about a few days or a week or so we were then told. We were allocated to station such and such. You were given your tickets and that too for travel and told to report there by a certain date. And that’s how it all started.
NB: Did it take you long to bond as a crew?
JM: To go around?
NB: To get together and —
JM: No. They did it. It was up to them. Some of them took a bit longer than others. But some — it was just the pilot, you know. He was the captain and if he liked the look of you he just picked you out.
NB: I mean, did you feel as a kinship as a solid crew relatively quickly or did that take quite some time?
JM: Oh no. Relatively quickly. I mean once he’d sorted out his navigator he didn’t have to worry about him anymore. I think he had to go on to the engineer. And we finished up with the captain and the navigator, bomb aimer and the wireless operator. We were four New Zealanders and the other three —two gunners and the engineer were three English boys. That’s how he picked it out. He didn’t want all New Zealand.
NB: Right.
JM: He broke it up and we got on marvellously well. No problem at all. Some of them might have [pause] once you got into your own crew you didn’t worry about anybody else, you know. It was a good way of doing it. Leaving it to yourself.
NB: Yeah. Formed some very strong ties didn’t they?
JM: We, as I was saying once we’d done that and you were sent off. Sent off then to a squadron or a training school for a bit of training before you got to the squadron itself and once you’d done a certain number of hours pre-flying. Pre-flying and then getting the feel of an aeroplane and to a certain — started off on the Wellingtons.
NB: Where were you stationed?
JM: We were at Westcott there for a while training. And we eventually went straight to number 75 Squadron which was a New Zealand, nearly a New Zealand squadron. We said that’s where we wanted to go. We had the option to go where we wanted. We said we wanted 75 Squadron seeing as it’s a New Zealand squadron. Even our three English boys. They didn’t mind. So we had four New Zealanders and three English. And it was very good because when we went on leave and that we went to visit their places, and that. And we used to be very popular being New Zealanders. Getting all the food parcels and cigarettes and tobacco and everything, you know. You had no trouble leaving out the [unclear] bills, they’d bring you home for tea and you always took cigarettes or things that they couldn’t get, you know. Or were hard to get. And they didn’t take long. It was amazing to see how, how we sort of just fitted in. of course every time you went on leave you didn’t go back home. Where we were going we used to always make for London. But as I say Brighton was a very popular place. And I went back there a few years later at different times when I went there. And the Grand Hotel had been all redecorated and, years after the war of course. And I went to there and made myself known and asked them, ‘Could I have a look around?’ I told them I used to be in England during the war. They all treated you well every time.
NB: Perfect. So how, how long was it before you left New Zealand and before you ended up with 75 Squadron at Mepal. How, how long a time span was that?
JM: Between?
NB: Between you leaving New Zealand and and getting to your squadron.
JM: Well we left in January. I left off in January. It would be about [pause] if I had my log book here I could tell you but I keep it up at Waltham at my son’s place in case I ever lose it. I’d say [pause] I have to try and think now. [unclear]. We went to a place called [unclear] which was on the outer Scotch coast and we had a Christmas. That would be, that was our first Christmas I think that we had so that’s nearly twelve months.
NB: A long period.
JM: That was, we were only still training there. We weren’t — we were flying Oxfords in those days. They were trainers. We used to train out on the Irish Sea and that sort of thing. But yeah. That would have been the best part of twelve months. As I say when we eventually got to a squadron. 75 Squadron that was in, I think that was July, if I remember rightly. So it was nearly eighteen months from the time we left New Zealand.
NB: Right.
JM: I mean we did a lot of training in New Zealand before we went on in to —
NB: So did you feel confident when you finally went out on ops? Did you —Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAMeehanJ150604TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Jack MeehanRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:45:33 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceNicky BarrDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-06-04DescriptionAn account of the resourceJack Meehan grew up in New Zealand and worked on the railway before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew operations as a wireless operator / air gunner with 75 Squadron at RAF Mepal.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandRoyal New Zealand Air ForceSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainNew ZealandUnited StatesEngland--CambridgeshireNew Zealand--WellingtonContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie Williams75 Squadronair gunneraircrewbombingRAF Mepaltrainingwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/303/3460/AMcPhersonWhiteR150901.1.mp30e5df7f42951c97fd20e9aa7362cf89eDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWhite, RoyRoy McPherson WhiteRoy M WhiteRoy WhiteR M WhiteR WhiteDescriptionAn account of the resourceEight items. An oral history interview with Roy McPherson White (1925 - 2018, 3006061 Royal Air Force), his log book, Service and Release Book, and five photographs. He joined the RAF in 1943 and after training, served as a wireless operator until 1947.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Roy White and catalogued by Barry Hunter.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-09-01RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWhite, RMDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAMcPhersonWhiteR150901TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Roy WhiteRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:53:22 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending OH transcriptionPending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceChris BrockbankDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-09-01DescriptionAn account of the resourceRoy White grew up in London and volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He served as a wireless operator in Egypt post war. CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great Britainaircrewtrainingwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/293/3448/PManningL1501.1.jpga932014196985b7e102fd8d9c5f40876https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/293/3448/AManningL150402.1.mp3e116fe794ee51b51bca07a58e1108044Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceManning, LenLeonard ManningLen ManningL ManningDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Sergeant Leonard "Len" Manning (1892872 Royal Air Force).PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-04-02RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextManningTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentSB: Okay, so, let’s start off with a, a very brief introduction, for my own benefit, it’s, um, it’s the 2nd of April, 2015, and this is Sheila Bib speaking with Leonard Manning. [Pause] So, I understand from our talk yesterday, be it a brief one, you were born in Paddington -
LM: Yes
SB: But basically brought up in Walthamstow.
LM: Yeah, yeah.
SB: Okay, perhaps to start off then, could you just tell me a little bit about your family, and living in Walthamstow and life before the war?
LM: Um, we had [? unclear] pretty standard life, I mean w- there was nothing special the family [?] my dad was an engineer, and um, mum used to do odd jobs around, and I went to one of the local schools [pause] didn’t get very far there because I failed the eleven plus, and then didn’t get a chance to do any more because the war started and [pause] I went to school until I was fifteen but some of that was up in Norfolk ‘cause we were evacuated - in 1938 I think it was, just before the war - up to Windham in Norfolk, and we stayed up there, as a number of people did, while it was – they thought things were gonna happen and they didn’t so [laughing] we all came back, and then later on it started again so [laughing] we went back up to Norfolk and I stayed up there until we came back. After I left school and started working uh, at, at a wood woodwork factory. I was a wood machinist, all like wood turning [? Unclear] that sort of thing, until I was called up, and I was called up at seventeen and a half, and always having wanted to get into the RAF I joined the Air Cadets in 1938 - which was the Air Defence Cadet Core in those days, it changed after the RAF took it over it became the ATC, and then you had to belong to that if you wanted to be into Air Crew, so obviously I joined that, and, um, when we moved up to [pause] Windham in Norfolk I, I did work up there for a time in a woodworking factory, but I did start a squadron of the ATC up there, because they hadn’t got one, and we started that, and, as I say, we came back and I worked for a time until I, I was eventually called up, and, [laughing] they said, asked the usual questions ‘what would you like to do?’ and like all the other lads ‘I wanna be a fighter pilot’ [laughs]. So he said ‘well, if you want to be a fighter pilot we’ll send you home on two years deferred service and then we’ll call you up and send you to Canada’, so I said ‘I don’t want that’ [laughing] so he said ‘why not?’ I said ‘all my friends are gone, I’ve got no one around me at the moment so I want to go, what can I do?’ so they said ‘well if you volunteer for air gunner we’ll take you in in a fortnight’s time’ so, that’s what I did, idiot [laughs]. And, it went off there – couple a weeks’ time I was called up and sent to Regent’s Park, in the blocks of flats opposite the zoo, where we were kitted out, and did a lot of drill and inducted into the rules and regulations of the Air Force, and then having got that sorted out they then sent me up to Bridlington, which was initial training area, where we did lots [emphasis] more drill, lots more aircraft recognition, which we did all the way through – you never, never missed aircraft recognition [laughing] no matter what else you had, you always had that. And we did clay pigeon shooting on the beach up there which was quite something – the weekends all the locals used to come out and watch us and cheer and clap if we hit anything, if [emphasis] [laughs]. And they said one day ‘right, it w- today will be the day you’ll fire a machine gun’, so we said ‘ooh that’s a good’ – so they took us up onto Flamborough Head, and sitting up on the cliff was, um, a Browning machine gun on a tripod, pointing out to sea, and an amourer sitting there with a box of ammunition, and we lined up, and, as we- when it was our turn, the armourer gave us a, a belt of am- ammunition, five round [laughs], which we had to put into the breach – far in, ‘cause didn’t last a second did it [laughing] it was a real waste of space. And that was that, so, having got all the initial training over was then sent to [pause] Bridgenorth, which was elementary gunnery school, was there for six weeks, doing all the normal gunnery things and hydraulics and what have you, and then having finished the course there we sent to number one gunnery school, which was in Pembrey in South Wales, and, um – where we started flying, that was where we first started, and the pilots, who were piloting the planes for us, were all ex Battle of Britain [pause] pilots so that, that, they were a bit, bit lunatic [laughing]. They tried, I think they, they were trying to frighten the daylights out of us, which they did [laughs].
SB: What year was this?
LM: That, um, that would have been forty [pause] forty-three I think [pause] yeah. And we did all sorts of things there, dingy drill, firing machine guns into the see at, at targets and firing on drogues that were towed by aircraft [pause] and all the other stuff that air gunner had to do. And having passed out there, was another six weeks training, we got our wings and became sergeant straight away, and they sent us off to [pause] OTU, which was Operational Training Unit, which I think was Silverstone, where we flew Wellingtons. We picked up our crew there and it’s true what they say, they put us all in a hangar, mixed us all up, ‘sort your crew out yourself’ and you went, just went round them [laughing] it was, it was hit and miss really ‘cause you, you didn’t know them from Adam and yet you saying to somebody, you know, ‘do you want an air gunner’ or [laughs] ‘I want a pilot’ and that was it, and you picked your crew, and that was it, you stuck it. The only one you didn’t have was the flight engineer because the Wellingtons were, weren’t four-engine so they didn’t have e- enough instruments there for a flight engineer. So we flew cross countries there and did fighter affiliation battles with Spitfires, and [pause] having done that – um, where did we go to from there? [pause] – yes went to Swinderby which was where we transferred to four engines – they had Stirlings up there, terrible old things they were, and got used to flying four engines, and we were flying out, doing circuits and bumps [?] one night at Coningsby – when they were out on operations we used to do, do circuits and bumps while they were on ops – and we landed on the main runway and our, our [laughing] undercarriage collapsed [laughs] right in the middle of the intersection of the main runway so they couldn’t use any of the runways, so they weren’t very happy with us because they hadn’t got the equipment to move it because the Stirling is a lot bigger aircraft than the Lancaster so they obviously hadn’t got the equipment to shift it so they had to wait until the next day to move it. And from there we went to, what they called? Lanc conversion unit where they converted some to Lancasters, and we had a few weeks there, that was at Silestone [pause] and that wasn’t very long but we got used to the, we picked up the, our flight engineer when we started flying Stirlings so we’d now got a full crew. And from there we were sent to a squadron, which was East Kirby, and we were there for a few weeks doing circuits and bumps and the usual cross countries and gunnery exercises until our first operation, which was [unclear, possibly Rouergue] in the South of France. Well, we, flew that one and [pause] it was quite spectacular because we hadn’t seen anything like this before and we flew over- flew into the target and it was all lit up, flares were being dropped and bombs were going down and it was all, all happening down there, but nothing was happening above [emphasis] it so we had quite a, an, an easy flight so we thought ‘if this is gonna be it [laughing] it’s a piece of cake’, how wrong we were [laughing]. And the next flight we did was daylight raid on Cannes when they were having problems getting the Canadians out of there so they sent a thousand bombers over in daylight, and that was unusual, and you know, it was quite unusual to fly along and see all of the other aircraft because at night you didn’t see them. It made you think [laughing] how close they were [emphasis] to you and how many there were there. And we flew in there and, um, dropped our bombs, and we, when we turned ‘round I had a good view of the target because it was smoke and debris flying out to about five hun- five thousand feet – was quite spectacular. But when we got back, we were told we were on again that night! So we thought [laughing] ‘we don’t like this’. So, anyway, we had a sleep, and some food, and [pause] then we were briefed for a raid on [pause] [unclear] in Northern France which was a railway goods yard, and we took off for that [pause] I suppose that would have been about [pause] ten o clock, and as we crossed the Dutch coast we got coned by searchlights, which isn’t very good. And having dived and turned and done all the evasion bits we were fortunate that we managed to get out. But having done that we got out of the bomber stream, which was our defence against the German radar, because if you got out of the bomber stream they could pick you up individually on radar which they couldn’t do when you were in the bomber stream. So, anyway, we altered course for the target again, and a little, little while later there was a massive explosion in the, our port wing, and immediately flames started coming past the tu- my rear turret which stopped to wo- stopped working immediately, because the hydraulic motors that drove the turret were operated from, from the port engine. So that was that. So I had to wind the turret round by hand to get the doors lined up with the fuselage, and climb out into the fuselage, which was really burning then, it w- when I looked up the fuselage it was just like looking up the mouth of a blow lamp. It was frightening it really was. And my s- parachute, which was stowed in the fuselage, was smouldering, that was already going, so I went and got it and tried to get it on my, the two hooks on my [pause, laughs] parachute harness, but as the plane was going down I could only get it on one, couldn’t get it on the other. And my rear g- my mid upper gunner, he got out of his turret, I saw him get out, he came down towards me and went out the door which was down towards the turret, and he went, and, um, I didn’t struggle any more with the parachute because I thought ‘if I hang about here I’m not, I’m not gonna make it’ so, I just jumped out and into the night, just jumped [emphasis]. Hit my head on the tail plane [laughs] which wasn’t very good. You weren’t supposed to do that, you were supposed to roll out you see? You got time to do all this, you take your helmet off and you sit down and you roll out – no way [laughs]. So, anyway, I’m counting down and I thought, I don’t know, I looked up and I saw the thing was smouldering away there and I thought ‘I hope I get down before this thing catches fire and drops me off’. But anyway, on the way down I felt s- I was leaning to one side and I felt something brush my face, I put my hand up and it was the intercom cord on my helmet which was caught up in the parachute which was fortunate because I hung on that, and that probably took some of the weight off the para- off the harness that was burning, and [coughs] being that it was night I was thinking well we- where am I gonna land, am I gonna land in a tree or [laughing] in a pond or somewhere nasty. In fact I landed in the middle of a field flat on my back, and as soon as the parachute dropped around me it, it burst into flame, so I jumped on that and put it out and stuffed it in a hedge. And by this time I was badly burned on my face and all down my arms, and I thought ‘well let’s see if I can find a lane’, which I did, came out on a lane and I thought ‘if I head South, I might meet up with some troops eventually’ and that’s what I did. And I walked for about, I suppose eight miles, and I was really [emphasis] in pain then and I could feel this running down my face, I thought I was bleeding to death – of course it wasn’t, it was the burns, and as I say I collapsed on this farmer’s doorstep and they must have heard me moaning and came out, took me in, and I was fortunate because they were members of the resistance. So they took me in and put me to bed, and, um, the following day they got a doctor to me - uh, a, one of the resistance people – came and sorted my burns out, and moved me to another house in the same village. And because of course the Germans started looking for me then, they were hunting all over the place, so they, they moved me from one house to the other, and eventually they decided that enough was enough and that, they moved me out of that village and they sent, sent a resistance bloke to take me to the next house, and [pause] he came and his code name was Lulu [laughs]. And off we went through the woods and we got to a stage where he suddenly said to me ‘I’m lost’ [laughing] [unclear] good thing for a guide. So anyway he said ‘I’m going, I’m going to that house to s- see if I can find directions’, and he stuffed a Luger pistol in my hand, sat me in the hedge and said ‘If, if I get into trouble don’t ask any questions just shoot’. Well he came back and he, he, he hadn’t had any trouble, and off we went, and we finished up in a tiny little village called Latretoise, and um, to a little café. Well when I say café all it was, was a room in a house although they had, not only had the café they also had a small hotel on the other side of the courtyard which the Germans used to use when they came into the village, and it was run by two elderly ladies. I think the youngest one was, when I was there I think she was fifty-seven then, how old her mum was I don’t know. But I mean for two old ladies to, you know, take in somebody like me and risk their lives, if they, if they’d have been caught they’d of shot me and them no, no argument. So, anyway, they – oh they, in the meantime, before they moved me up there, they, they sent um, a resistance man to interrogate me to make sure I wasn’t a German because Germans were dropping people over there to get in with the resistance to find out what was going on. So anyway I’d got all over that and [pause] anyway these these two old ladies they couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t speak French so there was a lot of arm waving and shouting. And [pause] they gave me a bed in the hotel across the yard and I used to have my meals in the- behind the café, in the room there, and [pause] I lived with the family, you know, as w- as one of the family. But there were three other people there, men there, who were hiding from the Germans, the Germans wanted them for forced labour in Germany and they weren’t gonna go so they went into hiding, and we used to all have our meals together, and there was also a young lady that used to come in to see us, brought us cigarettes and money, and she was about the same age as me ‘cause I was nineteen then, and she was a forger, she used to forge papers, she was brilliant she really was. And, um, anyway we had one or two nasty scrapes there [pause] they came, somebody came into the café one day and said that [pause] German tanks were coming towards the village so that, when anything happened like that I, they used to put me upstairs in the ladies’ bedroom, and I’d stay there until the Germans went, and anyway the following morning I got up and looked out the bedroom window and there’s all these German tanks [laughing] lined up in the courtyard, Germans strutting around I thought ‘here we go’, and um [pause] that was quite nerve wracking because we didn’t know when they, if they were gonna come into the café and come up stairs and you know find me, but they didn’t, and the following day they moved out so things got back to normal. There was a big orchard behind the hotel where I used to be able to go in and walk about, play about, and, um- but I wasn’t allowed in the café itself, because you know, you never know when the Germans were going to be in there. And another time we were sitting in the back room – I think there were five of us, having our evening meal – and the Germans were in the village and they came into the café and that that was alright because normally they didn’t used to come into the back of the café so we thought we’d be alright, and anyway, Madame Beaugart [?] came back to get some change, and this German followed her out, followed her back, [laughs] stood in the doorway, and he looked all round and I thought ‘this is it, we been caught’, but um she gave him his money, just turned round and walked out and that was that so that was a bit of a relief. But I could wander about, I could get out into the village, not very far but I was told not be about when the postman was about because he was suspected of being a collaborator. So we carried on like that, and [pause] one day, not thinking, I thought the Germans had gone and I walked into the café and there were two German stranglers sitting there having drinks. Anyway, Madame Beaugart [?] she, she realised what had happened she started beating me about the head with a, with a dish cloth ‘get back to work!’ [laughs]. And beat me out and I went out and we got away with that one. But I think that was the last time we saw the Germans because the next day I think, the, a couple of resistance lads came into the village on a German motorcycle and sidecar which they’d taken off the Germans [laughs] somewhere, and they said that the Americans were on their way to the village and were setting up a field hospital in one of the fields outside the village. So the next day I went down and found an officer who said he’d take me into Paris [pause] in a couple of days’ time, where they’d set up a reception centre for people like myself ‘cause there was thousands of us, floating about in France. So they set up this hotel in Paris, a Hotel Maurice, which had been the headquarters of the Gestapo, and he said he’d take me there in a couple of days’ time so I went back, they gave me lots of tinned fruit and coffee and stuff as, as they always did, for my friends in the village who were very grateful for that, and the following night there was a massive [emphasis] party, there really was. And all the good wines came out and it went on nearly all night, and the following day I said goodbye to them, went back to the Americans, and he took me into Paris in a jeep to the Hotel Maurice where we stayed, I think, for a couple of days, and um, we did roam about Paris a little bit but it was quite dangerous because the resistance were rounding up all the people that had been collaborating and- were shootings going on in cafés it wasn’t very safe. And, the- they then flew me back to Hendon, where I was interviewed by MI5 and they took any guns or knives you had on y- they took them off you and interviewed you to make sure you were, you were who you said you were [laughing]. And having got over MI5 they then took me to Hotel Maurice, um, in London, where I was interrogated by bomber intelligence, who wanted to know what I’d done with their Lancaster [laughs]. Having got over that, they- we sent telegrams home, and they said ‘right, you can go home on leave’, and the only identification was a piece of paper, a scrap of paper about three inches by two inches, type written, ‘this is to certify this is Len Manning’ and that was it, nothing else. So anyway, having sent the telegram, I went home, and of course living in London I got home before the telegram obviously, and I always remember I walked into our road, and one of the neighbours was coming down pushing a wheelbarrow, he was going over to his allotment, and he looked up and he saw me [background noises] and he thought he’d seen a, seen a ghost, and he ran back up the road to my parents, and then all hell let loose, they all came out because they hadn’t heard from me for three months. So, that was that. I went backwards and forwards to the RAF hospital, I think it was at the Middlesex Hospital, for medicals and eventually I was given [unclear – perhaps ‘no on sick leave’] and medically discharged, and that was that.
SB: What a fascinating story.
LM: I’m glad you enjoyed it.
SB: Yeah, yeah. Can I just go back over a few –
LM: Yeah [emphasis] sure.
SB: a few bits and perhaps, clarify – um [pause] going back before you said you were in the A- ATC because you wanted to [pause] fly and -
LM: Yeah
SB: So on, um, [pause] what were your feelings, you know, you said you were sent up to Norfolk in thirty-eight because you said they thought something was gonna happen, how did you feel were you eager for this, or –
LM: Oh yeah, I was keen for it, yeah. Always been interested in aeroplanes and things like that so obviously I was keen to get in the ATC and do some of the training.
SB: And then when nothing happened in thirty-eight and you were all sent back again
LM: [laughs] yeah
SB: Frustrated, or-?
LM: Yeah I was frustrated, yeah, yeah.
SB: Um, did you have any brothers or sisters who fought.
LM: I had a brother, yes, he eventually joined the RAF. He was [pause] an aircraft fitter. He used to repair the fuselages, do repairs and stuff like that. He finished up down in Saigon I think it was [pause] and eventually he was discharged and, but while he was in, there, East there, he contracted TB. And you know what they used to do then was then they carve half your ribs out, so he didn’t have a very good time, and [pause] dad was in the, at that time when I came out he was in, that time he was in the control commission in Germany. He had the equivalent rank of a major, and he was looking after again the transport going in Hamburg. Mum was in the Land Army, so we all did our bit [laughs].
SB: Yeah, yeah. And had your dad fought in the First World War?
LM: Yeah he was in the First World War yeah and he wasn’t in the Second World War obviously, he was too old and I think he was in a reserved occupation anyway, being an engineer. [coughs]
SB: So [pause] y- your parents, well, your dad had been in the Army, your mum was Land Army, how did they feel about you boys going to the Air Force?
LM: Um, I can’t remember them ever, ever saying anything about it really, I can’t remember their, their attitude to it, not really, no.
SB: Ok. So, after the war, what happened then?
LM: I was registered disabled for a time, which meant that I could – most companies had to take a certain number of disabled people so it meant that I could get a job fairly easily, and a light job anyway. And I found a job in a plastics company, looking after their duplicating and printing office, which was quite good, and being nosey I used to get down into the factory and find out what was going on and what how they did this, that and the other, and eventually I got out onto the technical side, and spent the rest of my life playing about with plastics, in various stages. And I didn’t have any qualifications, because at that time while I should have been studying I couldn’t, and all my knowledge was picked up, actually on the shop floor, practically. And I finished up as a Works Manager of plastics company Wood Green, which eventually went bust,
SB: So, how do you think your experience during the war affected life afterwards?
LM: [pause] I don’t think it did really. [pause] No really no. But when I came out of the war – not when I came out, a long time afterwards, when I got to a stage where – and I had two daughters, by the way – and, when they were off hand and we wanted something to do and I joined the RAF Association and became their Welfare Officer, and their Chairman. I was Welfare Officer in London for fifteen years I think [clears throat], ‘cause when I moved up here, I joined the RAF Association again and straight away the had me awarded a Welfare Officer so that was it.
SB: So, it has impacted you in some ways, but just, what you, doing for hobby or [unclear]
LM: Yeah, that’s right.
SB: Yeah, um, can I just, o- over some of the place names, obviously this is going to be typed up, could you just clarify the spelling of some of them, so that –
LM: Um
SB: The village you stayed at in France
LM: Latretiose, which is capital L-a-t-r-e-t-i-o-s-e. Latretoise.
SB: Right, okay, and then the hotel in Paris –
LM: Hotel Maurice
SB: Is that -
LM: M-a-u
SB: r-i-c-e?
LM: Yeah
SB: Okay, and then in South Wales you were at Pembrey?
LM: Pembrey yup.
SB: Which is P-e-m
LM: P-e-m-b-r-e-y I think it was.
SB: b-r-e-y. Okay, yeah, I think that was it. Just ones which could be slightly confusing when we’re writing it up.
LM: We know [unclear] – we know it’s [laughs]
SB: Yeah, yeah, but those I know so that’s not, that’s not a problem, but those were just three which I thought ‘I’d better check that spelling’. Right, so [pause] let’s get back to the time when you were actually in France. How frustrating was it to be [pause]
LM: Stuck there? It was, it was frustrating because at that time, um, obviously it was after D-Day and the Germans were on the retreat, which meant that they were guarding all the bridges and main roads so they could get back easily which meant that it was difficult for us to move around so that’s the reason I, I stayed in the café for three months. Because they wouldn’t move me any further away. Although I did get taken out one, one time, a chap turned up in a car [emphasis] I couldn’t believe it, and he took me to a ch- a big chateaux, somewhere, don’t know where it was, and they obviously didn’t like giving you names, but he had a big library there and he had a lot of English books and he lent me some English books which I took back with me, but when I came back he wrote to me because he was, evidently, he was the Chief of the, one of the segments of the resistance, and he came over to be interviewed by the BBC and I went up to Bush House to see him when he was being interviewed, which was quite interesting. But [pause] I didn’t go back to – you see there’s two places involved here I don’t think I told you this, where the bomber crashed was Basvelle [?] and that is not a ‘ville’ it’s ‘velle’ – I have this argument with [unclear] ‘it must be ‘I’!’ [laughs].
SB: Bas-
LM: -velle.
SB: Ok, yup.
LM: And the other place was Latretoise so there’s the two different things. And [pause] fifty years afterwards I hadn’t heard a- um, mum used to write to [pause] the, the girl that [pause] used to bring us cigarettes and stuff – Madeline her name was, and [pause] so, they kept in touch for a while but then it all petered out. And then fifty years afterwards, I was reading the Air Mail, which was RAF Association’s magazine, and one of the adverts was for anybody that flew in a certain Lancaster get in touch with these people in Basvelle. So I wrote to them, I didn’t know what they were after, and they wrote back and said they wanted to have a memorial service over there, and they’d like me and any others, members of the crew to [pause] attend, which I did. But they went to an awful lot of trouble to find that the rest of the crew – because amazingly I had some addresses, of the [pause] relatives of the crew members, which I was able to give them, and amazingly, quite a number of them had moved on, the, I think it was the Bomb Aimer, he had an address up in Blackpool, and he, they were still [emphasis] there. Couldn’t believe it. Fifty years after the war and they were still there. Unbelievable.
SB: Quite incredible.
LM: Anyway, his parents were still there but he wasn’t, he’d been, ‘cause he, um, I didn’t, I didn’t tell you this, when the bomber crashed, four of the crew went down with the plane, and three of us got out, the Gunner who I said I saw jump out before me, he had a very similar experience to me, he got in touch with, eventually with – funnily enough the first house he went to they wouldn’t have anything to do with him, the woman said ‘no I’m sorry, I can’t take you, I daren’t do it’, and she gave him another address, I the next village, and he went there and they, they took him in. But the amazing thing is the house that he went to at first was the house that the actual Mayor, there now, lives [laughs]. And the navigator, who also got out, which I can’t make out why, I never could, because all the others around him was killed, but he got out somehow or other, but anyway he landed and he was the only one in the crew who really knew who we were, being a navigator. Hopefully [emphasis] he knew where he was [laughs]. Anyway, he wandered off, and I think he spent a couple of days [pause] rummaging around and keeping out of the way, and begging food from various farms, but funnily enough he didn’t get taken in, and he came to a river, which he knew would eventually lead him into Paris, and he started wandering along there and walked into a German [unclear] battery [laughs] he got caught. So he spent the rest of the war as a Prisoner of War. And the [pause] what a, oh yeah the Flight Engineer, he was found some way away from the others with his parachute unopen beside him, so whether he was blown out or panicked and didn’t pull the red cord we don’t know, but he was found quite some way away. But it was his relations that were still living in the same house, fifty years on. And by the side of him they found a silver Florin which they gave to his, I think it was his, his sister, who I’d met, Joan, who I’d met up with – I’d met up with him several times, but eventually they died, well they’ve all died now, I’m the only one left. [Pause] and I think that’s about it. The four of them are buried at, in, in Basvelle, and that’s where we go every five years, in fact we were there last year, and, for a small village, I mean the, the, the Basvelle was a village, I should, I should think that it’s probably fifteen, twenty houses. But thousands [emphasis] of people turn out, it’s unbelievable. I can show you [gets up].
SB: Please.
[Background noises]
LM: [unclear] that’s the Len book. [laughs] Now how often do you get a book specially for you? And what she’s done she’s put together the whole story of our visits over there, and [pause] she’s really thorough, she’s really good, a real good organiser.
SB: That’s fascinating.
LM: Are you still recording?
SB: That alright? [laughs]
LM: [laughs] yeah, I gotta watch what I say [laughs].
SB: This is lovely.
LM: It must have cost them a fortune.
SB: Yeah
LM: Because she, I think she had six of those – she had one done for each member of the crew, with just their story, and there you are, there’s some of the crowds. And I mean, look at the standards. I turned up outside the Town Hall one, one day and there were fifty standards, lined up outside there, couldn’t believe it.
SB: Did they manage, well, when they, located you were any of the others still alive at that point and able to go to Basvelle?
LM: Yeah the Navigator, he was still around, but he was the only one, but he didn’t turn up at the first couple anyway. And I don’t know why. Yes they, they spent an awful lot of money, that village, on things like this, I mean they have a, a meal there for probably two hundred people. Guests and Mayors from all the villages around. You know they did one for each of my daughters, and my granddaughter.
SB: ‘Tis a beautiful record.
LM: ‘Tis int’it.
SB: I’ve never seen one like this.
LM: No. And the other thing is that they’re always giving me medals. Can’t get any medals over here but over there you can get medals every time I turn up [laughing]. The latest one, is that one in the frame there. [background noises] It’s very heavy. It’s like the old desk thing. But that’s a silhouette of my face, as I am now, and then w- as I w- was, and then the Lancaster. I mean that’s a one-off, must have cost a fortune.
SB: Yeah! Absolutely. Heavens. Well [unclear]
LM: Yeah I did that because I thought ‘well what do I do with it’, you can’t leave it lying about and you don’t want to stick it in a drawer, so.
SB: You make the point there, can’t get medals over here nut you get them there. How did you feel about that?
LM: Very annoyed. Because I did two or three campaigns for the Bomber Command, medal, which we didn’t get, we got a bar, to our other medals, but we didn’t get the, didn’t get a medal anyway. But they’re still fighting for it, I mean I, I, I got an award for what I did.
[background noises]
SB: [unclear] try and get the medals?
LM: Yeah, for that and the things I do with the school kids as well.
SB: Yeah. Yeah some recognition but –
LM: Yeah when I got, when we got, I’ve actually got the bar, they refused me three times [laughs], when I eventually got it, I rang Radio Suffolk to tell them that I’d got it because they’d been helping me with it, and somebody came on and said that ‘well how did you get your bar? Was it presented?’ I said ‘no, it came through the post’ they said that’s disgusting [emphasis]’. The next thing I knew the Mayor of Sudbury rang up and said, ‘Len, be ready tomorrow at ten o clock, I’m taking you up to Ipswich Town Hall where the Mayor or Ipswich will present you with your bar’ [laughs] we got it. But so anyway he picked me up and we went up to Ipswich, and there was the Mayor of Ipswich there, and the, um, Mark Murphy from Radio Suffolk was there, the press was there, and we were in the Mayor’s parlour, we had tea and they got all the silver out [laughs] you know, it was quite something, and so that was presented there. But that, that was presented by the, that award was presented by Mark Murphy from Radio Suffolk, but there was some, some people there and it was, you know, it was really something to be there w- in among that award. I mean that was a special award, I, I, the others, there were three of each, for each type of award they were, they were doing, there were firemen there, there were the police there, there was a little girl there that been in a fire and got, all her face was burnt away, terrible. And it was a real honour to be there it really was, but they really laid it, laid it on.
SB: So, so you personally have had recognition but a lot of them presumably haven’t.
LM: Yeah, that’s right they haven’t. But the other thing is that every year, and in fact I’m off at the end of this month to Holland, they invite Air Gunner, ex-Air Gunners over there, to, they been doing it for years, it’s only Air Gunners, funnily enough, and, to a town called Dronton, which is one of the towns that was built on reclaimed land from the Zuiderzee [?], and they tell you when you standing in the square, beautiful square, if you’d have been there fifty years ago you’d be six foot under water [laughs]. I mean it’s as new as that, it’s amazing, it really is. But I’ve had I think, four medals from Holland.
SB: At least your efforts aren’t totally unrecognised [laughs]
LM: [Laughs] no it’s amazing.
SB: Well I’m glad something came out of it, but this is a remarkable piece –
LM: That’s something else, isn’t it?
SB: That, that is, yeah, really remarkable. Ok, I think that probably covers –
LM: Yeah well if you think of anything else you can always give me a ring.
SB: Yeah, yeah, exactly, so I’ll stop recording.
LM: Oh sorry would you like a cup of tea or coffee?
SB: I’m fine, thank you very much.
LM: Sure?
SB: Yeah, absolutely. [background noises] I’ll stop recording, at this point.
LM: It was my ninetieth birthday in, in January, hence all these planes. Planes on cakes, I finished up near three birthday cakes [laughs].
SB: And lots of planes [laughs].
LM: There’s even that orange one from my great-granddaughter. Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAManningL150402TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Len ManningRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:51:15 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceSheila BibbDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-04-02DescriptionAn account of the resourceLen Manning grew up in London and worked in a factory before he volunteered for the Royal Air Force. He flew operations with 57 Squadron before being shot down over France. He spent three months living with supporters of the Resistance in a small French village and hiding from the Germans while he recovered from his injuries.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.FranceGreat BritainEngland--LincolnshireContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceChristina Brown57 Squadronair gunneraircrewbombingprisoner of warRAF East KirkbyResistancetrainingwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/PIronsH1501.2.jpg62e8999adc6227a8e1dcf9d08e401fbchttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/277/3430/AIronsH160730.1.mp385d919719d33d75444cec9637cafc6f9Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceIrons, HarryHarry IronsH IronsDescriptionAn account of the resourceTwo oral history interviews with Harry Irons (1924 - 2018). He was an apprentice tailor in London, but lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew operations as a rear gunner with 158, 462 and 9 Squadrons.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-07-232016-07-30RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextIrons, HTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentTO: I just have to do a short introduction first as well.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Good morning. Good afternoon. Or good evening. Whatever the case is. This interview is being filmed for the International Bomber Command Centre and the gentleman I’m interviewing is Mr Harry Irons. My name’s Thomas Ozel and we’re recording this interview on the 30th of July. Could you please tell me what year you were born?
HI: 1924.
TO: And –
HI: January ’24.
TO: And where — were you interested in aircraft as a child?
HI: No. Not really. No. You never see no aircraft anyway [laughs] in those days. The reason why I joined the air force because we lived in a place called Stamford Hill which was on a hill in London. And we had a grandstand view of the bombing of the City of London which was well alight. And four or five of us said we’ll go and join the air force. I was only sixteen. I told them I was seventeen and a half and they, and they didn’t even query me age. And they said, ‘Alright. You’re in the air force.’ And that was it. I was just sixteen. They assessed me and they said, ‘What do you want to be?’ I said, ‘I want to be a pilot.’ And they said, ‘We’ve got a hell of a load of applications for pilots but we’ve got vacancies for wireless operator/air gunners.’ So I said, ‘Alright. I’ll have that,’ and I became a wireless operator/air gunner. And I joined the air force in nineteen — the end of 1940. And the following year — I had to wait for an application to become a wireless operator. Well, I was in the RAF and I went to Blackpool in August 1941 and while we was there we got to twelve words a minute and they got us out on a squadron and said, ‘You’re not going to be wireless operators you’re going to be what they call straight AG’s. Rear gunners. So that’s how I became a rear gunner. So I waited a few more months and then I was posted for gunnery school. A place called Manby. RAF Manby in Lincoln. And I done six weeks training there and we should do another three or four months training at OTU which I’d never done. They sent me straight from the six weeks gunnery school straight onto a squadron. Number 9 Squadron at Waddington. And when I arrived there I was sitting in the mess, because I was a sergeant then, I was sitting in the mess and when I came out the mess there was a flight lieutenant pilot there and he said, ‘You’re going to fly with me as a mid-upper gunner.’ Because what had happened the squadron had converted from Wellingtons on to Lancasters and Lancasters carried an extra gunner and a flight engineer. So there I was at 9 Squadron in May, no, June 1942 and we were just converting, just finished converting from Wellingtons, the twin engine bomber on to Lancasters. And that’s how it started and what we had to do was get used to flying a four engine bomber which we did do, and in September we were sitting in the crew room and they said, ‘Ops tomorrow night.’ And that was in September the 9th 1942. I got that right. And so what you have to do is take the aircraft up for half an hour. Test the engines, make sure they’re running right. The bomb bay opens and closes. The bomb sight’s working. The guns are working. The ailerons are working and the undercarriage is working. You do that in half hours flight. When we landed the bomb aimer had already done about seventeen trips on Wellingtons so he was an old sweat. To do seventeen bombing trips he was really a real veteran. And as we landed there was a big tractor come along pulling up a four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. So the bomb aimer said to me, ‘That load means that we’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I was pretty, well I didn’t know a lot anyway. So I thought well that doesn’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And there you are. We got briefed. We went, we always had bacon and eggs before we went to the briefing. We had the briefing and that and when we went into the briefing room there was a huge curtain over the map and we were waiting there. The CO comes in, immediately pulls the curtain down and it shows you exactly what bombing raid was on. There’s a red tape running from England to the — and the town was Dusseldorf. So I still didn’t twig on a lot so the bomb aimer was there. He said, ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘We’re going to Happy Valley.’ And I thought well it don’t sound too bad. Happy Valley. And we went down to the crew room. Got dressed. And being gunners we have to be heavily heavily dressed. There was pure silk long johns and a vest. And your shirt, uniform and a huge fisherman’s pullover we used to put on. Then we put the electrically heated suit on. Is that alright?
TO: Do you mind if I just put this light on? Sorry.
HI: Put that light on.
TO: Yes. I’m very sorry but — sorry about that.
HI: How’s that?
TO: Yes. That’s better — sorry half your face is in shadow. Sorry. Ok. Sorry you were.
HI: Oh that’s only the, I’ll switch that one on as well.
TO: Switch that on.
HI: Yeah. Switch that on as well.
TO: Ok sorry about that.
HI: So we got dressed and then we had huge heavy furs. Fur jacket and fur trousers on top. The temperatures in those days was about thirty five, forty below zero. We had no heating whatsoever. And we went out to the aircraft and the ritual was we always pissed on the rear wheel for good luck. Anyway, we got in the aircraft and we was at Waddington. And they had no runways there. All they had was grass. And even on my first trip with this bomb load on we just managed to lift off over the, over the hedges to take off. And then we got, we, we flew around the aerodrome until we got up to six or seven thousand feet and then we headed east. We crossed the North Sea and then the bomb aimer who lays in the front, lays flat down at the front said, ‘Enemy coast ahead. Flak.’ So we was up about sixteen thousand feet then. Mind you this pilot was a very seasoned pilot. He was on his second tour so he knew all the tricks and he knew that to get over Holland you had to be above twelve thousand feet because of the light flak. There was hundreds of these light flak guns on the Frisian Islands what we had to pass over. Anyway, we was well above it and I looked down. I see these beautiful colours. Blues, greens, reds. Tracer coming up and dropping down and I thought to myself if that’s flak we’ve got nothing at all to worry about. We was well above it. We flew across Holland. We was up to about nineteen, twenty thousand feet then. We flew across Holland. We never see a lot. Only a few star shells and a few lights on the ground for the night fighters who used to circle around waiting to come after us. Anyway, we crossed over Holland into Germany and then the bomb aimer said, ‘Target ahead skipper.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I’ll have a little see what this target’s like. And being the mid-upper you could swing the turret a hundred and twenty degrees all the way around. So I swung it around facing the forward position and I had a shock of my life. In front of us was one huge massive explosion of shells. And I thought to myself, ‘Cor blimey, surely we haven’t got to go through that.’ There was hundreds of shells exploding. You’d see aircraft blowing up in the sky, some on fire. And the skipper said to me, being on me first trip, he said, ‘Mid-upper make sure you look above you and there’s no aircraft flying above you ready to drop its bombs.’ Which did happen. And a lot of our aircraft were badly damaged through aircraft dropping their incendiaries and bombs from a different height. Anyway, we, I said to the skipper, as I looked up there was a Lancaster above us with its bomb bay open. The bomb bay was enormous. It’s about from that there to about here. That’s the length of the bomb bay. It was enormous. And I said to the skipper, ‘There’s a Lanc above us with its bomb bay open. Dive port.’ He dived port, straightened out and started flying again towards the huge barrage and the bomb aimer said, ‘We’re on the wrong course.’ He said, ‘We’ve got to go around again and make another approach to the target.’ Because the most important thing on a bombing raid was to bring back a photograph. If you didn’t bring a photograph back they never counted for it as a raid. The camera was enormous. Like that. Huge thing it was. Anyway, we run. We went right through that lot with our bomb bays shut. Turned around, made what they called a dog leg and come back on the rear of the formations that were flying in and by that time Jerry had cottoned on to us. And don’t forget, another terror of bombing was the searchlights. If one of those searchlights hit you it completely blinded you. They were so powerful. They had what they called a radar operated searchlight and that was blue. It wasn’t white like the ordinary searchlights. It was blue. And it never missed. It went bang, like that and it hit you straight away and once that hit you about ten or fifteen searchlights would come and cone you. And then all the guns would open up and the fighter would come straight in on top of you. So you had to very very wary of a searchlight. Anyway, we made the dogleg around. Came and we was at the back of the bomber formation then and we could see, I could see from where I was the town was getting a real hammering. At that time, that period, there was no Pathfinders. That’s why we had to go around again — because we had to select our own target and bring a photograph back, more or less on that area. It did, when the Pathfinders was formed it did make bombing, not easier, but we could get in and all we had to then with the Pathfinders was bomb the flare. We didn’t have to look for a specified target. We just bombed the flare. Go in, bomb the flare, slam your door shut, dive and get out quick. And you had to get out quick believe me. And we made our approach around and we made the bombing run and, once ‘cause this was my first trip and I was amazed. Directly we dropped the bombs we went up like a lift because the weight, the huge weight of the bombs being dropped suddenly the aircraft went up four or five hundred feet. Anyway, we slammed the, we slammed the bomb bay doors shut and then we, what we used to do was either go port or starboard, dive down and get enough speed as we could to get away from the target. Anyway, as we’re coming home, and this was on my first trip, as we were coming home the bomb aimer and the wireless operator said, ‘We can’t breathe. We’ve got no oxygen.’ Apparently the shrapnel had come through, which it always did and cut the leads from the oxygen bottles to the line to where they were breathing. Anyway, so we had to go to below ten thousand feet and then we could take our oxygen masks off and breathe normal. And as we passed over the Dutch coast which we’d seen coming in, beautiful coloured lights. I had the shock of my life. These shells were whipping past us. I’ve never seen anything like it. How they never hit us I don’t know. There was hundreds of them. All coming up. Anyway, we got over the Dutch coast, the Frisian Islands it was and made our way home, and landed. Had a look at the aircraft which always had shrapnel holes in the aircraft. Always. And we landed and I thought, that’s it, that’s one trip. I’ve got another twenty nine to do. And I mean by twenty nine means you had to bring back a picture. If you didn’t bring back a picture it didn’t count as a trip so you did it again. So instead of doing thirty you had to do did thirty one, thirty two or whatever. How many pictures you missed. And that was my first. First raid and it shook the life out of me. I never realised what it was to go all that way and the fantastic bombardment of German guns was incredible. And you had to be careful even then, coming home, because they had what they called radar operated guns on the way and they were so accurate. They never missed. Even at twenty thousand feet they could hit you as easy as anything. So you just used to do a little gentle weave to keep, well to help you to keep out of the radar. That was my first trip. We went down. We had the usual bacon and eggs, cup of coffee. Told them what we’d seen and went to kip. And the next morning we woke up and we was on bombing raid again. I should bring, I’d better bring my logbook down I think.
TO: If you want. Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Two seconds. How’s it going?
TO: Can you just sit back down again sorry. The lighting seems ok actually. Yeah. I think you’ll be alright.
HI: Alright.
TO: Yeah. Sure. You sure you don’t want me to help you get it?
HI: No. I’ll go and get it. Don’t worry.
[recording paused]
HI: I should have put exactly what was happening in my logbook but the reason why I never done that as you see. That was my first trip.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. And I put target found and bombed.
TO: Yeah.
HI: And the officer, he said, ‘Don’t start putting down what you done and what you didn’t.’ Just put down the target.
TO: Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah. See.
TO: Bremen.
HI: And then two days later, which was the following day we went to Bremen. That was where they was building the submarines. How’s that? Is that alright?
TO: That’s a lot better. Thank you.
HI: Yeah. They was building the submarines there and we gave them the right goings. Mind the flak was absolutely horrendous there in Bremen. And believe it or not the following night we went to Wilhelmshaven. The other submarine base where they was building the submarines. And the biggest, the biggest thing at all about bombing was the flak. It was absolutely, and it was terrifying. I’ll tell you that. It was absolutely terrifying. The night fighters you never see until they hit you and we was useless really. We had only 303 calibre machine guns and the Germans had twenty millimetre cannons and we didn’t stand a chance. Never stood a chance. And the thing that done us, that the Germans brought out a simple, unique thing of placing two cannons behind the pilot on the JU88 and the M10 and all they used to do was pick you up on the radar. Drop down two or three hundred feet. Then come up underneath and go straight for the petrol tank. At first they used to go for the actual aircraft but a lot of those aircraft had bombs on board and they’d line up the fighter as well. So what they had done they used to come up underneath and they could see from the fire from the exhaust, the engines and they had a beautiful view of the petrol tank. They used to give it one quick squirt and the bomber would just used to literally blow up in the sky. I mean literally. Literally blow right up in the sky. That’s why we got thirty thousand names at Runnymede. We don’t know what happened to them.
TO: Did you ever actually see that happen on a Lancaster?
HI: I see it, yes. I see, well actually, didn’t actually see the fighter hitting the Lanc but we used to see the, see the bombers blowing up and we didn’t know why. There was no flak. All you used to see was a huge explosion and up it went. And that went on. We lost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers. But the thing that annoyed me the RAF knew what was going on. They knew what was going on and not once did they ever warn us about this method of attack. Never. ‘Cause before all we expected was them to attack the rear. The rear turret. They always went for the rear turret and before they got this idea of coming up underneath. And they literally shot down hundreds and hundreds of our bombers and not once at any briefing did they warn us that we were being attacked from underneath and it went right on ‘til the end of the war when the Air Ministry admitted that’s what the Germans were doing. They never warned us. And the only reason that I think why they never warned us is because they wanted us to fly straight and level because if we’d had known what was happening we’d have weaved our way right the way through. We could have at least seen what was coming up underneath us. But we never knew. And we lost thousands of bombers over there, and that went right on till the end of the war. All those boys were lost. Yeah.
TO: Do you mind if we talk for a bit about your time before joining the RAF?
HI: Well I didn’t have a lot of time really. I was only a kid. I told you I joined when I was sixteen and I was an apprenticed tailor because living in the East End you had two jobs. You either became a tailor or a cabinet maker. You done your apprentice and that was the two main employers in the East End was tailoring and cabinet making. And I was just, I worked for a firm called Polikoff’s. A huge firm. I was apprentice there ‘til I got, till I was called up. Well, ‘til I joined the air force. And the reason I joined the air force really as well the firm I worked for got badly bombed. And one morning we went to work and there was hardly any bloody factory left. But it’s, it was a terrible, terrible time. When you think that in 1943 the average, average length of time for a bomber crew was five trips. But I carried on. I don’t know why I carried on. Why I seemed to miss it all but there you are. But I know that the RAF knew about this underneath attack because I finished my first tour. I done about, thirty — actually I done thirty nine trips on my first tour. That was because we couldn’t bring back the photograph on nine trips. So they didn’t count. And I went as an instructor instructing air crew coming back from Canada and America and Rhodesia. They was raw. Raw kids and they, you know, they had the shock of their life when they came back to England and had to fly on these terrible misty days and nights. We lost a lot of blokes killed through lack of experience. And we had to bloody well fly with them as well. Anyway, after a while they said you’re being posted back to operations and they posted me to 77 Squadron at Full Sutton in Yorkshire and when I arrived there the CO, when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you.’ So I thought, hello. I was a warrant officer then. And I went down to the office and he asked me to come in the car. We went out to the Halifax and the Halifax had a big hole in the fuselage underneath and there was a .5 been placed there. And the CO said, ‘When you go on the bombing raid you’ll be sitting there and if any aircraft come up underneath you’ll have a good view of the aircraft coming up underneath you. So therefore they knew what was going on. And we took it to a [pause] I think it was Duisburg I think.
[pause]
Yeah. Took it too Duisburg on a daylight. That was on the 14th. That was on my second tour. And I took it to Duisberg and it was so bloody cold. They made a great big hole in the bottom of the aircraft and the cold air was coming through. Not only us but the pilot, the navigator. They was frozen and they never used it no more. What they should have done was put a proper turret, enclosed turret underneath. All they had was a bloody big hole. All the slipstream used to come through the aircraft and it was impossible really enough to fly with it. Anyway, they never used it no more. Just carried on as we did. Anyway, that was on my second tour on Halifaxes. But where were we? Some very interesting raids here. Right. Went to Dusseldorf on the 13th of the 9th I think it was.
TO: Yeah.
HI: The 13th of the 9th and then on the 13th of the 9th we went to Bremen after submarines. And that was very heavily defended. And when we got back we went in bed. They said, ‘You’ve got to get up early because they’re a night flying test for tonight’s raid,’ which was on the 14th. We’d already been. We’d already just come back from Bremen. On the 14th we went to a place called Wilhelmshaven. And it was the same thing. They was producing all the submarines. And it was very important at that time because the submarines were sinking most of our ships. So they had to blast. And they did blast it. And on the 16th we went to the worst, worst place you could possibly go to. Essen. Essen was the worst place in Germany for flak and fighters and we lost literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bombers over Essen. There was a major Krupps factory there and that’s what we was after. We destroyed it eventually but it took a while. And we lost a hell of a hell of a lot of men.
[phone ringing]
TO: You can answer the phone. That’s fine.
HI: Ok. I won’t be –
[recording paused]
HI: That Memorial is exactly where we took off at Waddington. That was at the end of the runway but that Memorial was right bang in the middle where we took off from our aircraft’s runways. As we took off, right in front of us was the — right in front of us was the Cathedral and that is where the Memorial is now. Yeah.
TO: Sorry, you mentioned you’d been on raids to Bremen and Wilhelmshaven.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did you actually find out the damage to the submarines you were causing?
HI: Yeah. We actually, we’d done a hell of a lot of damage there. Especially at Bremen. Apparently they really wrecked the submarine bays, well not the bases, where they was actually producing the submarines. And that’s why we went back the following night to hit Wilhelmshaven because they were sinking so many of our ships. It did slow them down a bit. How much I don’t know. But we did make two successful raids there. Because we could tell that by the photographs we brought back. Of the actual bombing. As the bombs went the camera ticks over and the photoflash was in the fuselage. It was a huge, like a huge drainpipe and that was released exactly the same time as the camera clicks over. And it was a big white burst of light that lit up the area where the camera was pointing. And you could see all these photoflashes going off on your bombing run. Apart from all the bloody aircraft that was on fire going down. Yeah. Which was many many many. Yeah. The thing that they used to kid us. They did used to kid us. We used to say we seen so many bombers going down. They said, ‘No you never.’ This was a bloke who’s never flown in his life said, ‘No, you never. What you see was Scarecrows.’ The Germans were firing up shells to mimic a bomber blowing up. And after the war they admitted there was no such thing as a Scarecrow. All those explosions were actually aircraft blowing up in the sky. And they did used to blow up as well. Yeah. Especially with a bomb load on. I think I was very very very fortunate to, to do one tour instead. And then I went on another tour. And I never, never really got myself in any trouble at all. We used to see them going down. And anyway we went to Essen and that was the worst. That is the worst place ever to go. Essen.
TO: Worse than Berlin?
HI: I think it was worse than Berlin. Yeah. Worse than Berlin. Yeah. The amount of guns there was incredible. And the amount of fighters. But that Berlin, when they done the Berlin raid they’d done, they lost nine hundred. Nine hundred bombers, didn’t they? In that period of about six weeks. They didn’t care. Anyway, on the 14th of the 9th we went to Munich. And what actually happened — on my squadron we was losing a lot of aircraft. Even at that period it was a hell of a lot of aircraft. And two fellas come down from Cambridge. They said they were scientists and said, ‘We’ve got a new device we’re going to put in the turret. And when a German night fighter approaches you from about six hundred yards away you’ll get a red light come up in your turret warning you there’s a fighter in the vicinity.’ Which was brilliant because what we could then was start weaving and not fly straight and level. Anyway, but what happened, the squadron on the raid previous to Munich two of our boys were shot down and apparently the Germans, they went for all these aircraft and must have found this instrument in the rear turret and they probably got the wavelength of it. And this is what happened. We went to Munich and we flew, ten tenths cloud all the way so we flew on top of the cloud. If a fighter came we just went straight in the cloud. We was pretty much safe. Not from flak but from the fighter. Anyway, we got to Munich and the cloud broke and there was Munich wide open. Beautiful moon and we did give it an hiding. Apparently Hitler was there giving a little talk. That’s why we went there. On the way back the skipper said, ‘We know our course back home so we’re going to fly ten tenths through the cloud all the way home so we won’t be interrupted by fighters.’ We went for about three quarters of an hour, an hour through ten tenths cloud and all of a sudden the cloud broke and I looked through the, I was in the rear turret then, I looked through the turret and there, from just where my car is was a JU88 had been following us through that cloud. And it must have been through their radar. And he opened fired and we was going, when you say flying straight and level you’re like going up and down as well. You know. Anyway, as we went down he opened fired and he just, his cannon shells went just over the top of us. We never hesitated and we couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — you could see his face even. We just opened fire. Me and the mid-upper opened fired. He swung over and down he went. That was one of my luckiest occasions I’d ever known. I’d only done about six trips and then we came back and that was it. But that’s how lucky you had to be. How he never, how he missed us I still don’t know. It was point blank range and his cannon shells went just over the top of us. Yeah.
TO: Do you think maybe he might have been low on fuel?
HI: No. I don’t think he was low on fuel. He was — I should imagine, when you say you’re flying straight and level you do but you’re going like that. Up and down like that sort of with the turbulence of the slipstream. And probably as we went down he opened fire and missed us. But we never missed. We hit him. We couldn’t miss him. He was right bang — oh he couldn’t have been no closer.
TO: So was he shot down?
HI: He went down, yeah. Yeah. We couldn’t claim it because we couldn’t verify whether he, whether he exploded on the ground or not because we went back in cloud again then. The cloud broke, we went back in to it again and came home.
TO: So you were in the mid-upper turret at this point.
HI: No. I was in the rear turret. And me and the mid-upper open fired. Yeah. I was only in the mid-upper for the first trip. Just to get used to the, to the, what the bombing raid was. The rear turret was manned by an Australian but he was very very tall and he had a bit of difficulty in the rear turret so he went into the mid-upper after the second raid and I took over in the rear turret. I wasn’t this size. I was only about nine stone then. And but he was a big tall Australian. He was too big for them. And that’s how we carried on. And after Munich we went to a place called Wismar. Am I alright?
TO: No. It’s just there’s a fly buzzing around. That’s all.
HI: A fly. I must have no flies in here, you know [pause] We went to a place called Wismar. They had a big Condor factory there and it was our job to attack this factory which was specified that it was a factory we had to bomb. There was still, you must remember there was no Pathfinders then. And we went in and I think we made a direct hit but unfortunately two of our aircraft that was with us were shot down over Wismar. So that was unfortunate. And then from Wismar there was September. 23rd of September [pause] The thing was with Bomber Command life was expendable. They didn’t care what the losses were. They’d just sent us out and sent us out and sent us out. Well, strangely enough this Wismar was a seven twenty hour trip. So we went there on the 23rd of the 9th and we had a little rest. And then on then on the 1st of the 10th we went back to Wismar again. They said go back and make sure it’s flattened. Which we did do. And then the following night, believe it or not, we’d already done a seven twenty hour trip. The following night we went to Essen. And on the way to Essen two of the engines on the starboard side shut off so, yeah the flight engineer changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and immediately the two engines on the starboard side packed up. So he changed the petrol tanks over to the outer tanks and we were still flying and all of a sudden the four engines just cut. Just like that. And we just fell like that. Luckily enough the flight engineer was right on top of it all and managed to change the tanks over to the right. To the wing tip tanks and the four engines started off. And we couldn’t go to Essen because we didn’t have enough fuel. We couldn’t use all the tanks. So we turned back and we just managed to land at Waddington before all bloody four engines packed up through lack of fuel. So that’s how lucky I was. But what it was in the petrol tanks they had what they called the immersion pumps, electric immersion pumps and what was happening they was packing up on all the aircraft. So what they done they changed the immersion pumps to gravity fuel. So there was no pump there. The petrol was just dropped in gravity. And it solved a problem but before that we lost a lot of aircraft through these petrol pumps packing up. And then we went to — I think we had, I think we went on, yeah we must have gone on leave because [pause] yeah. Yeah we had, yeah we had NFT. We never done anything and then we, on the 15th of the 10th, in October we went to Cologne. And I always remember Cologne because the thing that always struck me in Cologne was the Cathedral. The huge Cathedral. And every time we went there we see that Cathedral. It never got bombed. The whole of Cologne got flattened apart from the Cathedral. There was damage but not too bad. But I don’t think through we were going to miss the Cathedral. It was just sheer luck that we did miss it. But we did hammer Cologne. It really took a terrible hiding. That was on the 15th of the 10th ‘42. October.
TO: Sorry.
HI: Yeah. Go on.
TO: Did you hear about the, what did you think of the thousand bomber raid on Cologne?
HI: That was just before we started. Actually speaking, all it was was a propaganda raid. They got every single aircraft. All from OTU and that’s where the losses were. They lost more bombers from the Operational Training Units on Wellingtons than what they did the main bomber force. They got every aircraft that could fly to make up the thousand. It was only a propaganda rout anyway because we’d done much much more damage with about two or three hundred Lancs then what that thousand bomber raid made. And most of the losses were with OTUs. The inexperienced crews training. And it was only, it was only a propaganda raid I think. They wanted, he’d only just come into office hadn’t he? Harris. And that was his first big raid and he got every bomber from OTU, Conversion Units. Anywhere he could find a bomber and as I say made up his total. But the big bombing raids started really when the Pathfinders moved in. Because what we was doing then we was bombing, not the target, we was bombing the flare. And if those flares were accurate a whole town got wiped out. Which happened quite often. At Hamburg, Dresden, Essen. The towns were open. Once they got the Pathfinders right. Perfect. All those towns were completely open. And I don’t think, I personally think this country would never have stood the bombing like the Germans did. When you think five or six hundred Lancasters each carrying one four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Going over the target and out again within fifteen minutes. You imagine the hell that must have been there. Anyway, that was war. And then — this is a very interesting raid. On the 17th of the 10th — no, before that we was told. What actually happened was when we arrived at Waddington 44 Squadron was the first squadron to be issued with the Lancaster. What they called the Rhodesian squadron. It was all Rhodesians on it. So they decided to test out this Lancaster and they sent it to, on a bombing raid to Germany. Right into, six Lancasters and they sent right into Germany to bomb. What was the target? Anyway, on the way there the Messerschmitts jumped them and out of the six they shot five down. And only one returned. Nettleton. He got the VC. So when we was in the mess talking to the aircrew that, the one crew that come back they said never, no more will we do daylight, low level raids because it’s suicide. So in September [pause] October. Yeah — October. About the 15th they said we’re going to do some low level daylight flying and we was flying over Lincoln. Nineteen Lancasters. That’s all there was at the time at thirty or forty feet above ground. And we wondered. Surely they’re not going to have another daylight raid which did happen. On the 17th of October. The target was Le Creusot. The time, the time in the air was ten and a half hours. So you can see it was a big schlep. We went right across the North Sea. Right across France at a height of about the height of this house. Ninety Lancasters. Each carrying six one thousand pounders. We flew right across France. All the French people were out waving to us and throwing us kisses and whatnot. We were still looking for the fighters. We never see no fighters. We went right to Le Creusot. And the reason for the bombing of Le Creusot in daylight was that the whole factory was surrounded by workers dwellings and they were frightened if we bombed of a night time there’d be a heavy casualties amongst the civilians. So they decided to do it on daylight and we went right across France. Ninety two of us at about thirty feet off the ground carrying, each carrying six one thousand pounders. What actually happened at the briefing we had to — six aircraft, six Lancasters, had to break off as we reached the Le Creusot and bomb the power station just outside Le Creusot. And on our port side was the Dambuster — Gibson. And he took a picture of us, of our aircraft as we were going in to attack. And as we were going to attack this power station an aircraft on my starboard side just went straight in the deck and blew up. So there was only five of us left attacking the power station which we did attack. And we flattened, literally flatted it. And last year me and my friend was in France. I said, ‘Let’s go to Le Creusot and see what the damage was.’ And we went to the Le Creusot. There’s a huge factory there even now. And my friend approached the manager and said, ‘This bloke. I’ve a bloke out here who bombed you during the war.’ He said, ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘We want to see him.’ So they invited us in and they gave us lunch and we went around the factory and we explained what we’d done. I said, ‘But we didn’t bomb your factory. We bombed the power station,’ I said, ‘One of the aircraft was blown up on the on the approach to the power station.’ He said, ‘Yeah they’re buried. Not in a military airfield but just outside, in an ordinary field where they crashed.’ So I said, ‘Can we go and see?’ He said, ‘Yeah.’ So we went out there and there were six graves and I said to the Frenchman, I said, ‘No There were seven men in the aircraft. There’s only six graves.’ He said, ‘Oh, no.’ He said, ‘The rear gunner survived and was taken.’ How? I don’t know. I’d seen the aircraft literally blowing up in the sky, no, blowing up as it hit the ground. And he survived and was taken prisoner of war. But we actually flattened the place. If you imagine ninety Lancs. Daylight. No opposition. So we come back and we were very relieved that we went all the way there and all the way back and never seen a night, never seen a day fighter. And there must have been hundreds of them there. So we were very relieved and we thought well that’s it. So we started having night flying tests to follow all that week. And then on the 22nd of October we went to Genoa. We went to Genoa in Italy which is a long long long schlep and we wondered why we went there. Because, you know, what was there? I know there was the big battle was going on in the Middle East — El Alemein, at the time because all the supplies were going from Germany through Italy. Anyway, on the Saturday, to our surprise, on Saturday morning said there’s a briefing. This was Saturday morning. So we thought that’s strange. When we went down to the briefing the biggest surprise of the lot. We was going to a do a daylight. A low level daylight raid on Milan in Italy. And that was on the, that was on the 24th of, 24th of October. Operation Milan. Ten and three quarter hours. A long schlep. And we went all the way to Italy at low level, you know, just like that until the Alps. We couldn’t go over the Alps because we were so low so we weaved our way through the Alps. Came out at Lake Como and went straight down to Milan. And I always to this day I think about it. As we approached Milan they never had no idea that there was going to be an air raid. There was no air raid siren. Nothing. So a beautiful Saturday afternoon and as we flew over Milan and made our approach to the target all the people were out in the streets walking about. In the restaurants. And then we opened up and if you imagine ninety Lancs with six one thousand pounders. We just dropped them in the town and we came home. We lost about four that day to German fighters on the way back. But I don’t know how we went all the way to Milan in daylight and come all the way back again. Incredible. And that raid was, that was a ten and three quarter hour trip. I tell you my arse was sore when I got out of that plane [laughs] We never flew no higher than about thirty or forty feet off the ground until we got to the Alps. We had to go a bit higher and then down on Lake Como right into Milan. And then there was no air raids sirens and no guns. We just literally took the whole town by surprise.
TO: Do you remember what the target was? Specifically. In Milan?
HI: No. We just, well there was no target really. We just bombed Milan. We just went in. From what I could see we just bombed the centre of the city. There was an aircraft factory that I think they were supposed to been after but they didn’t bother. They just, and actually I did see a few Lancs opening up their machine guns over the town. Yeah. I did see that. There you are. That was war. And I was, I was a veteran then. I was. We was the only crew left out the squadron. The original squadron. And then we had a little break for about [pause] that was on the 24th of the 10th . Yeah. We had about a week. Must have gone on leave. And then when we come back on the 18th of the 11th we went to Turin again just to liven them up. And believe it or not that was a seven, eight hour trip. And the following day we went back again. To Turin, and done the same again. It was a long long time. We only had about seven hour break between the two raids. And then we went to Stuttgart. Stuttgart. We never made it. You know, we had trouble with the engines and we had to come back. So it didn’t count as a raid. And then this is what happened there. Then we went to Mannheim. That was in the, oh look, you’ve got the bomb load here. One thousand, one four thousand pounder, nine hundred and eighty incendiaries and nickels. Nickels were pamphlets. You know. Propaganda. What we used to do was over the North Sea we used to throw the bleeding lot out. We didn’t want the bother of throwing them out when we got over [laughs] we were supposed to throw them out over the target. We just used to throw them in the sea. Then this, this was when the battle of Alemein was on so we went back to Turin. Nine hours. Next time we was iced up terrible with engine trouble as well. We only done three hours for that one but that didn’t count as a trip. And that was it. And then we went to — this. This, see this raid here.
TO: Is it Hasselunne?
HI: Yeah. What actually happened was we went for the briefing and we said, ‘Where the bleeding hell is Hasselunne.’ It was just a small town just outside the Ruhr valley. Even to this day I remember the briefing. He said, ‘Look’ he said, ‘You’re bombing in the Ruhr valley and none of the workers –’ am I alright?
TO: Yeah. You’re fine.
HI: ‘None of the workers are getting any rest.’ So what they’re doing is they’re sending all the workers out to the small towns so they can get a good night’s rest. You know, the factory workers. So he said, ‘What we’re going to do is liven them up.’ I couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘We’re going to liven them up.’ But they said the reason why there was no bombing that night — it was a full moon. And the full moon when you’re flying is like daylight. There was no cloud so there was going to be no bombing that night but this nuisance raid. There was seventeen Lancasters ok’d at this nuisance raid. That means we had to go in at, this is night time mind you, as low as we could and bomb, bomb the, each was given a small town, a village or small town just outside the Ruhr Valley. Seventeen of us and bomb these small towns and come back home. Just to disrupt the German workers night’s kip. Anyway, in the bomb bay was sixteen one thousand pounders. Delayed action. And then we went to Hasselunne. And it was a beautiful night. Beautiful moon. It was clear as day. We went in about four or five hundred feet with our delayed action bombs. Sixteen of them. And we dropped them right plump right down the middle of the High Street. And I still wonder today if, you know, there was about a fifty minute half hour delay action on the bombs and when we got back we thought it was an easy trip. We went there. Came all the way back at low level and landed. And, but the thing was out of the seventeen Lancasters only seven come back. And we lost ten that night. Well it was fifty percent. Over fifty percent. And that was what I call a terror raid. It was an ordinary open town sitting there like there was, as we flew over, we could see the town. The bombs went and that was it. But then again that was war. And then we went back to our old faithful — Duisburg. And I tell you what — it was getting a bit warm. It was getting a bit warm at Happy Valley. And we went there six hours fifteen minutes. I’ve got the bomb load here. We went one thousand, we went with one thousand one hundred and seventy four incendiaries and nickel. Plus nickels. Six hours fifteen. And then the following day, after we’d been there, as we came back they woke us up in the morning and said, ‘You’re on ops again.’ Munich. So all we had was about five or six hours trip, sleep and was back on the 21st. The 20th and the 21st was at Munich.
TO: Could you please elaborate on this. About training machine guns please.
HI: Yes. We did machine gun a train that night. In the station. It was puffing away in the station and the pilot said, ‘Give it a liven up,’ and we went right along the train. Me and the mid-upper. Blasting it. We see the bullets, the tracer bouncing off the train. Yeah. That was war I suppose. What happened then —
TO: Sorry, if you don’t mind, sir would be ok if you sit back so your head isn’t in the shade. Sorry.
HI: So what happened then? The pilot I was with — Stubbs — had finished his tour. And the crew and they’d finished their tour and I was left without a crew. I was sitting in the mess waiting for new crew and a bloke I knew named Doolan, Sergeant Doolan came up to me and said Harry our rear gunner’s just been killed. We’ve just brought him back dead. Would you like to take his place? So [laughs] I was rather. I knew the rear gunner because I’d have been called up with him in 1940. And his name was Robinson and he came from the other side of London. Brixton. And a night fighter got on their tail. Blasted him out the turret. Literally blasted the whole turret and the tail off. So he said, The aeroplane is being repaired,’ [laughs] Repaired. ‘In the maintenance unit. We’re going to pick it up now. It’s got a new turret on it. A new tail plane. Ready to fly again.’ He said, ‘Would you come as a rear gunner?’ I said, ‘I haven’t got a pilot. I’ll come.’ So, so I flew with this crew. They was all NCOs, and we finished. We finished a whole tour. And we was the only crew that finished a tour all the time I was at Waddington. The nine months I was at Waddington we was the only crew that finished a tour. And we was all NCOs. Where were we? So my first trip with Sergeant Doolan was Dusseldorf again. Look. Went there a few times didn’t we? Dusseldorf. And this was, this was a shaky one. Hamburg. We got to Hamburg and we was prepared to go in for the bombing raid. The flak was crashing about all over us and the plane started going like that. Literally dropping like a stone. So the pilot said, ‘We’re so iced up that we can’t fly the bloody aircraft.’ And I could hear somebody say, ‘Oh it’s coming off.’ Great big lumps of ice crashing against the aircraft. Anyway, he said we’ll have to abandon. So we dropped our bombs where we were. Just outside Hamburg and went down as low as we could and the ice started breaking away and we managed to fly again properly. But when I got back and told them that was a really dicey trip they said, ‘You didn’t you get no photograph then?’ We said, ‘No. We just approached Hamburg, we see Hamburg being bombed but we just couldn’t make it,’ They said, ‘Well, it’s unfortunate. That don’t count. That was another trip that didn’t count [laughs] You know, it was hard in those days I’m telling you. And us all being NCOs and the briefing officer probably being a flight lieutenant or a squadron leader we couldn’t argue with it. We was only bleeding poor old NCOs. And then this is a new year. No. This is the 13th of the 2nd 1943. This was in February ‘43. We went to Laurent in France which wasn’t bad. It was an easy trip that was. And then back to Milan which was a long, long. long slog. And then our favourite. As a rear gunner our favourite was operations to Wilhelmshaven. Back to Wilhelmshaven. And then again to Bremen. Which was unusual I started off there didn’t I? Wilhelmshaven and went the other way around. Bremen and Wilhelmshaven. This time it was Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and I tell you what. There was some flak there. There was some flak. We got badly damaged coming back from Bremen so we had to land at a place called Croft. And then we returned the next morning in another aircraft. And then we went to Nuremberg and that night, believe it or not, we lost fifty that night. Flying to Nuremberg. The next time they went there they lost a hundred and twenty. Yeah. They lost a hundred and twenty. They went back there again a couple of months later and lost a hundred and twenty Lancs in one night.
TO: Out of how many?
HI: About four hundred. Yeah. It was slaughter. And then again on the 26th of February I went to Cologne. Do you want to see it in here?
TO: Yeah.
HI: Have you seen Cologne?
TO: Yes. I’ve seen it. Thank you. Sorry. Is it ok if I ask what did you think of Arthur Harris?
HI: Well, to me personally speaking the man had plenty of guts because after the Nuremberg raid we’d lost a hundred and twenty bombers that night. The following night he sent out another huge force. Now, a man has got to have, you’ve got to have some guts in you to do that. You know. After that terrible loss. But he was the man to do the job. Nobody else could do it. He, only took orders from Churchill. Churchill was the governor and what Churchill said went. Unless it was a diabolical raid and Harris said, ‘No. I can’t manage that.’ But there was, he had an aide de camp, Harris. I forget his name now. And we was going on a bombing raid and the aide de camp said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘It’s too much. It’s too many losses. We’re losing too many people there. We shouldn’t go.’ And he resigned. But Harris still went and we still had the losses. So there was somebody you know up the top knew what was going on. Our losses were, well you can’t, you cannot believe it. You could say you’d go on leave, you’d go on leave and come back in the mess — there was all strangers in there. All the old crews had gone. Within a week. Had a heavy week all had gone. All new crews. Yeah. And the faces got younger and younger and younger.
TO: Did you look young for your age?
HI: Do you think so?
TO: No, did you? Did you look young for your age? Or did you look older?
HI: Here. There I am there. On the wall. You see me. There. Picture on the wall.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Can you see it?
TO: Yeah. I see it. Do you think, did anyone ever find out that you’d lied about your age?
HI: Yeah. They did after I’d — I went, I went in the air force under the name of my mother’s maiden name because I didn’t want — I was stupid. I went in the name of, the name of Galloway. And then when I’d been on 9 Squadron about two months the CO called me in and said, ‘We found out your name isn’t Galloway. It’s Irons.’ He said, ‘We’ve changed,’ he never said nothing, he said, ‘Your name’s been changed now to Irons.’ And I went from Galloway to Irons and nothing was said about it. But it was all kids, all joined . Loads and loads of sixteen and seventeen year olds. There’s me there. When I got married.
TO: Was that, was that during the war?
HI: Yeah. That was just before I went and bombed Dresden. That was about two weeks before I bombed Dresden. 1944. I don’t know what made me get married then. I don’t know. And this here [pause] this, they used to kid us, they used to kid us that was an easy trip.
TO: Gardening.
HI: And it was the most dangerous trip we ever been. Mining. We used to have six one thousand pound mines on parachutes. And the thing was you had to fly over the Baltic and drop these mines at about five hundred feet. Jerry knew this and he had loads of these little fast boats with light flak on them and they shot down loads and loads of our boys. On these mining trips. And they used to call it an easy trip. That’s because it wasn’t the Ruhr valley.
TO: Did they call it gardening?
HI: They called it. Yeah. That was the code name for it. Gardening, yeah. Because you was planting. Instead of fruit you were planting mines. Called it gardening. Yeah. Oh you know. And then believe it or not I was back, back on my old favourite. Oh I went to Munich on the 3rd. And on the 9th we had this gardening and on the 12th back on my old favourite. Essen. I went to the Ruhr valley twenty seven times and I survived. How I done it I don’t know. And then we went to St Nazaire. Went to St Nazaire and that was a dodgy trip. They had a hell of a load of flak. We was in France and had a lot of flak. The thing was we had a, we had a wireless operator and on one of our trips he wasn’t well and he couldn’t fly that night. So he, he was one trip behind us. Say we was on twenty eight he was on twenty seven so he had to make up a trip so what they used to do they used to find another crew who wanted a spare wireless operator and he’d go and make up his trip. He was one behind. Unfortunately, he went on this trip and he never come back. A bloke named Chapel. He was on about his twenty seventh trip. He only had three or four trips to do. And he went on this trip and never came back. Which happened all the time. And then [pause] we ended our tour. My last trip was Kiel Canal which is a shocking place that was. Shocking. Well they was all bad. And then I survived. I survived thirty seven trips and I’m still a sergeant. And they sent me to a OTU. Sent me to OTU as an instructor. And I done that for about six months and was in the mess one night and we’d had a load, I used to drink then. I don’t drink now. And we were already sozzled and we caused a little bit of damage. A little bit of mayhem in the mess. We went in front of the CO the next morning and he said, ‘I’m bloody fed up with you gunners.’ And he said, ‘I’m posting you.’ And I thought where the bloody hell are you going to post me? The two postings he’d already got out was to Scotland. I thought sod that. I’ve got to go up all way to Scotland. And my posting come up. Southend. Just down the road. How lucky could I be? And what I was doing I was flying in Martinets towing a drogue for the flak. And we used to go right from Dover, Ramsgate, Margate, Clacton, not Clacton. All the way along the south coast towing this drogue. And the British ack ack used to fire, but they were so bloody accurate they used to keep blowing the bloody drogues off. So they told the gunners to fire a couple of degrees further back. And you used to watch the flak. I used to watch the flak in a straight line, right coming right along, right. I hoped they’d stop firing before the [laughs] and you could see the puffs of smoke trailing the white, trailing the big white drogue we had. And I’d done that went on for a few months and they said you’re going to back on ops again. And that’s when I went back on Halifaxes. And that was in [pause] that was in — there was a little bit of a rest and I never expected to go back on ops again. These are all towing drogues. The co-op yeah.
TO: So how many ops did you do in total during the war?
HI: Sixty.
TO: Sixty.
HI: Yeah. And then this is when I was telling you about. The beginning, the beginning of my second tour.
TO: [unclear]. Another daylight one.
HI: Yeah. Well that’s when I, when the CO told me they’d put a .5. It was a big hole. A huge hole cut around underneath the belly of the Halifax. And they had the .5 there. And we went all the way to Duisburg. The flak was, the flak was just as bad as when, well it was worse than when I’d been there previous. In the previous months. And I never seen no fighters. And it was in daylight. When we come back the pilot was screaming his head off. He said, ‘I’m not going to fly any more planes with a bloody great hole in the bottom of the aircraft.’ He said, ‘It’s too cold.’ So they, they put a block on it. But the funny thing was as we were going in to Duisburg we was, we was approaching Duisburg the someone, the ones in front had already bombed Duisburg and they were coming back. Like in a U. Coming back. There was about a quarter of a mile. As we was going in like that they was coming out. And one of our aircrafts, I don’t know why he done it, he decided he wasn’t going to bomb Duisburg. He was going to join those that was already coming out. And as he went across from our, from our flight as he went across, right across to join those that were coming out, the flak — because we was on the protection of the silver paper. We was all dumping the silver paper out and the radar couldn’t do nothing about it. But he broke the protection of the silver paper to cut across to join the blokes that was coming out. The flak opened up. It went one — one, two, three. The third one hit him. Right dead centre. Just went like that. It’s a shame. And I’ve seen it at night time. But during the day I’d seen it. I couldn’t believe it. Just went in smithereens. He still had his bomb load on. He must have had. Yeah. Why he cut across I don’t know but he just blew up. Yeah.
TO: Could you please explain how the silver paper or Window worked?
HI: Well, what it was, each piece of silver paper made a blimp on their radar screen. Each piece. So if you imagine millions of pieces dropping down — the whole screen was absolutely flooded. And the guns just stood still because they didn’t know which, which blimp to follow. Instead of one blimp on the screen there was thousands of them and they didn’t — so the guns just stood like that. The searchlights stood like that. The fighters didn’t know what to do, and the fighters — what they’d done they’d put a separate radar in the fighters. Night fighters. Independently. And they could still attack us which they did do. But the silver paper definitely helped us. Really helped us with the flak and the searchlights. They couldn’t do anything. The searchlights just used to stand still like that. But one thing they used to do which let’s say there was cloud cover most of the way to the target. The searchlights used to light up under the cloud and the bombers that were flying above it were silhouetted out against the light of the cloud and the fighters used to go straight in there. You know. Loads and loads of fighters. You had to watch them all the time and directly you see one you went straight into a dive to try to get out of its way. But as you know we never flew in a formation and there was a lot of crashes with our bombers criss-crossing and diving about.
TO: Did you participate in the large raid on Hamburg in July 1943?
HI: No. I missed that one. I went to the one previous. The one previous what I went to. That one was the fire one wasn’t it? That was the first time they used silver paper. That was exactly the first time they used it. We’d never used it.
TO: Did people call it silver paper or did most people call it Window?
HI: Window. Window. It was called Window. Yeah. Yeah. They had that right from the war. They had it but they wouldn’t use in case. They were frightened the Jerries were going to use it.
TO: And ironically Germany had developed it at the same time and didn’t want to use it.
HI: They did. Yeah.
TO: In case Britain used it.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. We used it because we were getting very strong in the air at that time. And they had to use it because the night fighters were getting the upper. And do you know at one period they was going to pack up night bombing? Yeah. They were going to stop it because the losses were so heavy. Yeah.
TO: And what’s your opinion on the Halifax bomber?
HI: Good. The Halifax Mark 3 was a good bomber. It never got the credit it deserved. It was a very very good bomber. They changed the engines and the tail plane and it became a very very good bomber. It was reliable. Got a good speed. Good height. The Mark 2 was rubbish. I think the Germans shot most of them down, like the Stirling. But the Mark 3 Halifax was a good plane. They changed the engines to Bristol, Bristols, and it made a lot of difference. Yeah.
TO: And what did you think of the Wellington?
HI: The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to it when the war started. It was alright for a few months of the war. My first squadron, number 9, they made the first bombing raid of the war and they lost, I think they lost two or three on their first bombing raid. The Wellington was a good plane but it wasn’t up to the capability of bombing. Night bombing. It was too slow. Didn’t get the height. They did go up to the Mark 10 and we used to see them now and again but they didn’t use them a lot at the end of the war. The Stirling was useless. The Stirling one was a useless bomber. Couldn’t get no height. It was big. It was clumsy. Some of the blokes used to like it but not many.
TO: And the Lancaster. What did you think?
HI: The Lancaster was a good plane. Yeah. Was a good plane. Yeah. And they churned them out. The way they churned them out was unbelievable. Do you know what we’re going to do now? We’re going to stop for a bit. I’m going to make you a cup of tea.
TO: Yeah. Sure. Are we on course?
HI: Yeah.
TO: Yeah. Ok.
TO: Yeah. Are you ok? Yeah.
[pause] [doorbell rings]
TO: Ok.
HI: Right. What do you want? The second tour?
TO: Yes. Start on the second tour I think.
HI: What happened I was doing drogue towing with my Martinets and the CO called us in and said, ‘You’re back on ops.’ And they sent me to 77 Squadron, Full Sutton. October 1944. And when I arrived they said, ‘The CO wants to see you. So I said what’s he want to see me about.’ I bet he wants to borrow a few [laughs] Anyway, he came out to us and he said, ‘We’re just, this is a special Halifax,’ and he said, ‘It’s got a big hole been cut in the bottom of the Halifax.’ It was a big hole as well. And it was a .5. and they put a sort of, I don’t how they expected me to sit on that bloody seat all those hours. And it was a manual. It was a manual .5 and they said, ‘If a fighter, a night fighter comes up underneath you’ll be able to spot it and protect the aircraft.’ So I said, ‘Alright. Fair enough.’ And the strange thing was it wasn’t on a night bombing trip. They sent me on a day trip to Duisburg. And I never see no fighters come up. And we come back. But the crew, the crew was complaining terrible about the hole in the aircraft and the cold air coming through. Anyway, on the 22nd of the 10th ’44 I went up again in this Halifax with a .5 and done a little bit of air firing with it. And I come down. I said, ‘I don’t think it’s going to be very successful because it’s too bloody cold.’ So, so the CO said, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with you then. We’ve don’t need any gunners here.’ And they posted me to 462 Squadron at Driffield, Australian squadron. And there I started my, on the 29th of the 10th. 29th of the 10th [pause] where was I there. Yeah. On the 22nd I was at Full Sutton. On the 29th of the 10th I was on ops in 462 Squadron, Driffield. 1942. The pilot apparently had been shot down over France and he made this because it was occupied by the British troops then. And they managed to get back to England and of course he was looking for a new crew and I joined him. And believe it or not as a mid-upper. I don’t know why they put me as a mid-upper. Anyway, they put me as a mid-upper and we went to Happy Valley. A place called Dornburg It was a daylight on Dornburg. That was just outside Happy Valley. On the following day we went to Cologne. Operations — Cologne. That was as a night time. And I couldn’t see them I was beginning to find it was getting a bit easier. The ops were getting easier. The flak was just as bad but the fighters didn’t seem, the fighters didn’t seem such a pest like they used to be. And the thing was every trip I went on. Every trip I went on my second tour. Near enough every one, near every one, was to Happy Valley. The next trip was with Hourigan, an Australian, was to Dusseldorf. And on the 4th we went to Bochum. Bochum. That’s in the Ruhr valley as well. And then [pause] and then we went on a daylight raid. It just shows you. A daylight raid to Gelsenkirchen and — which was unbelievable. You’d never, the year before they would never have dared gone over the Ruhr valley in the daylight. And then we done a bit of air firing in a Halifax. And then we went back to Essen. Hourigan again. I was with Hourigan again and we went to Essen on the 29th of ‘44. And on the 30th believe it or not we was back in Duisburg. And every one of those trips was to the Ruhr Valley. And on the 21st of the 12th ‘44 I went to Cologne. And I was posted from there to the other Australian squadron 466 Squadron. Total operations — I thought it was nine. Then I was posted to the other Australian squadron at Driffield — 466. And I carried, and I went with, wait a minute, I carried on with Hourigan and we went to Saarbrucken in daylight. Which was unbelievable. And then we went to Magdeburg in the, in the Ruhr Valley. And then back to Gelsenkirchen again as a mid-upper. I went as a mid-upper then in a Halifax. But I found that things were a bit easier in the second tour. Wasn’t really because we were still losing a hell of a load of bloody aircraft but it seemed to me a bit, seemed to me to be a bit lighter. And then on the 2nd of the 2nd ‘45 I went to Wanne-Eickel. It’s another — I missed out a page here.
[pause]
And then I was posted to 158 Squadron at Lissett in Yorkshire. And the first trip we went to was to Dresden. That was on the 13th of the 2nd ‘44. We, we never actually bombed Dresden. We bombed the place just outside Dresden called [unclear ] or [unclear] or Bohlem or whatever. B O H L E M. We was told to go in before the 5. We were in 4 Group and were told to go in just before 5 Group and draw the fighters away from Dresden which we did do. We had bleeding swarms of bleeding fighters around us. And the Lancs went into Dresden unopposed and that’s why Dresden took such a hiding. There was no opposition whatsoever there. And then 5 Group just done what they liked. And we could see, well we was right next door to it. We could see the huge blaze at Dresden burning merrily away. And we was at, from this place just outside Dresden. We landed. We had trouble. I think we got hit that night and we landed back at Manston for a couple of hours. Then we went to, then funnily enough I started flying with a Canadian. A Canadian named Cooperman. And strangely enough that was, that was back, back at the Ruhr Valley again. Rohrsheim. And then the following, the following day I was with Cooperman and we was bombing a place called Worms in the Ruhr valley. And I always remember to this day, this Canadian, who was a Jew, was a Jewish bloke and he’d left Germany with his parents before the war. And he was, he was a flying officer in the Canadian Air Force. And as we approached Worms he said, ‘Chaps,’ he said, ‘This is where I was born.’ He said, ‘And now I’m going to bomb the bastards.’ And those were the exact words he said. And we did. We went and bombed it. And the next thing we knew and on the 23rd of the 2nd we went to Essen again and, the times I went to Essen, and the following day on the 24th of the 2nd I went back to the Ruhr Valley and done close quarter — Kamen. And then the following on the 27th — That was our last trip of the war we went to Mainz. And most of those trips were in the Ruhr valley. And unscathed. Unbelievable. And of course the war, the war finished soon after that didn’t it? 27th of the 2nd.
TO: And what are your thoughts on the bombing of Dresden?
HI: Well to be honest with you it was just well after all those trips it just came normal. You know. You just looked down and saw a huge huge fire below you which you normally see and that was it. Dresden was the same. We was, the place we bombed was more or less on the outskirts of Dresden. The idea of us was to draw the fighters away. Just go in about five or six minutes before the main force. Bring the fighters away and of course that’s what happened. And the Lancs from 5 Group went in and done their business. They did do the business. There was no flak there. No opposition whatsoever. There was no flak and no fighters. They just went in, done their bombing and went home. And of course it caught well alight.
TO: Did the fire that you could see at Dresden — did it look any bigger than what you had seen before?
HI: It looked big, yeah. We could see. All the crew said, ‘Blimey that’s a big one down there.’ But then again most, most bombing trips we always had looked down, those targets were well alight. Well alight. The amount of incendiaries we dropped was unbelievable. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of them. Yeah.
TO: This is going to be an odd question and I don’t think you may even be able to answer it, but when you were flying over areas that were on fire could you, was there any noticeable change in the temperature when you were flying above it?
HI: No. I wouldn’t have thought so. You was only over the target, it looked like a lifetime but you was only over there minutes. Really minutes. Oh, you’re talking about the hot air coming up?
TO: Yeah. The [unclear] rising up.
HI: I don’t think — they never noticed. It didn’t seem no bloody warmer in the turret anyway [laughs] but all you was, I’d known from my personal opinion was we wanted to get in. Get out. Quick as possible. That’s what we done. But the thing that we never realised but the German fighters told us afterwards, the worst thing we ever done was after we’d dropped our bombs was to go into a dive. We should never have done that because that gave the advantage to the night fighters. They was above you then. Well above you to come in. What we should have done is kept the same height coming out of the target. But we all used to dive. Pick up speed to get away from the target. Yeah. But you used to see on the way home you always see bombers blowing up in the sky. All the time. Yeah. Over the target, yeah. And the thing was to get in and get out quick.
TO: Right. How do you feel about Churchill’s decision when he ordered the bombing of cities?
HI: Well, we never knew it was. We knew it was somebody higher up than Harris but of course it was, was Churchill. He demanded that we bombed the cities and Harris just took his word for it and he made sure we did bomb them. And of course he had the backing of a huge bomber force didn’t he? Lancs, Halifaxes. Probably, if we’d had them a year earlier the war would have finished earlier. But the bomb load was enormous. One four thousand pounder and fourteen hundred incendiaries. Imagine that lot dropping. Four or five hundred bombers dropping that lot on a small town. Yeah.
TO: When you went on missions were you part of a bomber stream?
HI: Well a stream. It was, literally was a stream. There was no formation flying or nothing. You just went over and you had to be in a certain point. More or less rendezvous at a certain point on the map. So that you were more or less was all collected together so you could make one rush to the target. Get in and get out quick. You never doodled about over the target. You went in and especially with the Pathfinders. You just, you just went for the flare. You’d see the flares. Went straight for the flares.
Other: Sorry to disturb you again Harry.
HI: Yes sir.
[recording paused]
TO: You think, you just mentioned to me something about the evasive manoeuvres. The night fighters said the wrong thing to do was to dive.
HI: Yeah. Leaving the target. We found out, well after the night fighters said it was the wrong thing to do was to dive away from the target because it gave them the advantage of height to come in after you. Which, when you think about it, was right. But what actually caused the much trouble for Bomber Command was the up and under. The Schrage musik. That was one that caused all the trouble. The flak you couldn’t, couldn’t avoid. The flak was there. If it hit you it hit you and if it didn’t hit you you was lucky. It was just sheer luck. You couldn’t avoid it. You had to go through it and if one of those shells hit you that was it. Yeah. We used to get huge lumps of shrapnel come through the aircraft. That was the danger. And if that hit you it caused terrible damage. So there you are.
TO: Could you see much on the ground other than fires and explosions?
HI: No. All you could see from about twenty thousand feet you didn’t keep looking at the target because you had to keep active with the fighters. Because they was all around you. All waiting for you. They was like sharks and you had to watch. You had to really watch the sky for fighters. They were the biggest danger. And when they come in they showed no mercy. They went straight in.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters take out more bombers than flak?
HI: Yeah. Definitely. Much much more. Especially with the up and under. That’s what done it. Yeah. I think they — I reckon — I don’t know, I’ve got no idea but I reckon seventy five per cent, eighty percent of the shot down were done by fighters. And you know when you think some had forty or fifty bombers to their credit. It was so easy for them. You could come and all they had to do was get underneath the aircraft, press the trigger, press the button, fire the guns and they wouldn’t, the shells that were explosive shells go into the petrol tank. Bang. Up it went. Just like that.
TO: And when you, can you explain to me a bit more how the briefings worked for the missions?
HI: Well, what it actually was we were two squadrons. We were told at the briefing in the briefing room was near enough down to your HQ you know where all the office buildings were. And with a crowd in the room there was always a military policeman on the, on the gate and we went in and sat down. A bit noisy. Everybody was noisy. Laughing and joking. Then all of a sudden — bang. The CO would come in with his adjutant and his armament officer, gunnery officer, bomb aimer officer and navigation officer used to follow the CO in. And they’d go on the platform and we’d wait for the curtain. There was a big curtain over the map. That was pulled down and then you’d see. And that’s when you used to get the ohs and ahs. See the Ruhr. See the Ruhr Valley up and say, ‘Oh blimey.’ But they didn’t, they used to love Italy. Going to Italy. But Munich was a bad target, Nuremburg was, Berlin was. But the Ruhr valley was the place where most of the flak was. The reason for it was because you didn’t have one town. You had about ten or fifteen towns near enough on top of each other. And if you missed one, one town, if you missed one town you had to go over another town and they’d give you a pasting as well. That’s why they used to call it Happy Valley. Yeah. You got a good reception going in and a better reception coming out. You used to see the bombs blowing upwards and the huge explosions down below. You still had to keep one eye out for the fighters. Especially the single engine fighters. They used to come in and they used to go right through the flak after you. Yeah. Messerschmitt. Used to come straight at you. And they had four cannons and if one of those hit you mate it was good night nurse.
TO: What kind of targets were you generally given at the briefings?
HI: Well, we was told an area where to bomb. We were never given an actual target. We was given an area to bomb because very very difficult of a night time picking out a target from twenty thousand feet. You got an area and we would bomb that area. If we could. If it was a clear moonlight night and at that time we were dropping our own flares. There was no Pathfinding at the beginning. And we used to drop our own flares to see where, you know, where the target was. And it got easier when they got the Pathfinders. Because all that meant there was — get to the target and see the flare. Bomb the flare. But the trouble was Jerry knew this was going on and so he used to concentrate all his, all his artillery on where the flares were. And a lot of places were literally burned to pieces. Because I didn’t realise how many houses in Germany were made of wood. It was amazing. Dresden was nearly all wood wasn’t it? Yeah. And there was another place. I forget where it was. Completely burned down. Near the Baltic. I can’t remember the name.
TO: Hamburg.
HI: No. Smaller place than that. They burned the whole town down. That was in about 1942.
TO: Lubeck.
HI: Ah, Lubeck. Yeah. Yeah. They burned Lubeck down completely. Yeah. Raised it to the ground. Incendiaries. They were fearsome things those incendiaries. I think they was about eighteen inches long. Shaped like a twenty piece coin. About four, I think it had four or five sides to it but they were pretty deadly. Imagine that. I mean we used to carry fourteen or fifteen hundred. You imagine a hundred Lancs all carrying that amount load. How many incendiaries were dropped in one night. And then we had the other incendiary with oil. That was a terrible one as well.
TO: And were you ever given, did you ever win any awards during the war?
HI: Yeah. I got the DFC. The reason I think I got that because after, as the war was finishing they asked me how many trips I’d done. I wrote them down. They took no notice of it and then a couple of weeks later they said, ‘Oh. You’ve been awarded the DFC.’ So that’s what I got, the DFC. It was a bit unique because I was a warrant officer. I wasn’t an officer and that’s an officer’s medal the DFC but being a warrant officer they gave it to the, gave us the DFC as well.
TO: Did it go to the rest of the crew as well?
HI: That I don’t know. The war had finished and most of the crews had dispersed, you know. What was left of them. Most of the blokes during the war was awarded the DFCs and DFMs. A lot of them got killed. A hell of a lot of them. Usually and this is what I don’t understand — when I finished my first tour everybody got the DFM except me. That I don’t understand. Then I realised what it might have been. Because I changed my name from Irons to Galloway when I was halfway through me tour. And I think they might have looked at it and just seen Galloway. And Irons was just so many trips. And Irons was so many trips and they never connected the two together. But all the crew got the DFM except me. Pilot, navigator, bomb aimer, wireless operator, mid-upper except me.
TO: And what was your favourite aircraft of the war?
HI: Well, I think, myself the Halifax. I thought the Halifax Mark 3 was a better aircraft than the Lanc. It was a good bomber. It done its job. Same as the Lanc. I don’t think it carried the same heavy bomb load as a Lanc. It was a good plane. Had no problems with it. We had four machine guns in the mid-upper and four in the back so it was a bit better armed than the, than the Lanc. And right at the end of the war of course they brought out the other turret with the .5s in them. It was a bit late though. The war was more or less finished. We should have had them in ‘42. They made a hell of a lot of difference.
TO: And I know we mentioned this earlier but could you explain again what happened to people who refused to go on bombing missions?
HI: Well I know it happened. I know it happened. I’ve heard, you know, stories of what happened. I never come across it myself but it did happen. And especially not the officers so much which I still don’t understand that. But the NCOs were stripped. Stripped down to AC2 and put in the prison. I think it was in the Isle of Sheppey and they done about two or three months here. And when they came out on their record books, you know the big card box, book thing you all had was right at the top in red letters that they’d refuse to fly. LMF. Yeah. Which was wrong. Some blokes couldn’t take it. Just couldn’t take it. Probably had a couple of bad trips and that was it. And they were bad trips. Yeah. And after the war they just treated us like mud. Didn’t care. Gave us all the menial jobs there were about and that was it. We had to wait twelve months before we got demobbed. A lot of them got, a lot of them had their ranks cut right down to AC1 and AC2. I don’t know why. I never, but a lot of them did. Which was all wrong.
TO: And what’s your best memory of the war?
HI: My best memory of the war was my first bombing trip. To Duisburg. Not Duisburg.
TO: Dusseldorf.
HI: Dusseldorf. That was my first trip and that was the most frightening. It wasn’t the worst one I done but it was my first one and I never expected what I’d see. Never knew. And when we come back after a bombing raid we never discussed, never discussed a bombing trip anyway. We never said it was bad or anything like that. We just, just more or less kept quiet. Because we was all frightened what was going to be the next one I think. Which near enough always happened. The crews. You’d go on leave, you’d come back — all different faces. Yeah. And that went on time and time again. I think they could have treated bomber crews a little bit better than what they did for what they’d done but there you are.
TO: And what was probably the most difficult mission you ever had? If you don’t want to discuss don’t talk about it.
HI: No. The most difficult place to go to was Essen. It was terrible. The flak there was unbelievable. It was all difficult. Every one. You never knew. You never knew your luck. Some went on easy trips. They thought was an easy trip. Like the one who got the VC for the first daylight raid. Low level raid of the war in a Lancaster. He got the VC and he stayed on the squadron but he never done no trips until one came up for Italy which we used to say it was easy. He went on an Italian one and got shot down. So you never knew your luck. Nettleton. That was the VC. Yeah. He went on one of the easy Italian trips and got shot down.
TO: So you mentioned earlier that guy Gibson was with you on that one low level mission.
HI: Oh yeah. Yeah.
TO: Was he with a different squadron number at that time?
HI: Yeah. He was, he was 106 squadron. He was the CO of 106 Squadron. 106 Squadron. He was definitely on our port side. And he took the photograph of us and another crew as we were just going into Le Creusot and that is, and the actual picture now is in the big museum at Hendon. The big photograph of it. Yeah. Because he went on to become the Dambuster didn’t he?
TO: What do you think of Operation Chastise?
HI: Operation?
TO: Chastise. It was the Dambusters raid.
HI: Well I reckon myself, personally speaking they could have got near enough any crew could have done that. It was only just more or less flying low and dropping the bomb at the right height. But they just, they just picked the crews, he picked the crews he wanted. They were all his mates mostly from 106 Squadron. But it was a good raid that weren’t it? A good raid. There was worse ones than that but there you are. You can fly to Essen or on the Ruhr Valley was a much more dangerous target than the — than that.
TO: Did you ever have to attack railway yards?
HI: They did but we never attacked, I never attacked a railway yard. Only in Italy, Genoa. But we attacked the whole town and the railway yard was amongst it, you know. We attacked that because they was having a big huge battle at Alemain and the Germans were bringing supplies through to Genoa down to the Middle East. And we attacked it. The railway yards there. Yeah.
TO: And what do you think was the most important campaign of the war?
HI: Well actually — what? From the whole of —
TO: From the whole of the war.
HI: Bomber Command. I think if it hadn’t been for Bomber Command the war would have gone on for much much much longer. Much longer. So we — so you’ve been to Germany haven’t you? Seen the, did you see the state of the bombing? Oh you never did you?
TO: I saw, I saw the church that they left.
HI: Yeah. Yeah. But the flak, but the bombing terrorised Germany. Definitely. I don’t think we would have stood it anyway. I know we wouldn’t have done.
TO: And did you hear at all — when did you hear about the Holocaust?
HI: Nobody heard about that ‘til after the war. They must have known. They must have had, they must have had reports coming through from the Resistance about what was happening but we never heard about it. We never knew it was going on. The funny thing was I read after the war that the Jewish community in England asked us, asked Bomber Harris to bomb Auschwitz. Bomb it completely. And he refused. Good job he did because can you imagine what would have happened after the war when they found out that they said the RAF had bombed a concentration camp? The thing was the Jews reckon that it was better for them to be killed with a bomb than the suffering like they were. [pause – fly buzzing on recording] Got some flies in here haven’t we? Have you got it all written down have you?
TO: I have my questions on here. See which ones I’ve asked and which I haven’t because a lot of them you’ve answered already in your — in your —
HI: Yeah.
TO: Were clouds over the target ever a major problem?
HI: It was a big problem. Once, well once the cloud was over the target you couldn’t see it so you either had to bring your bombs back or drop them on a near enough target what you see. And once you, if you went over the target we shouldn’t have gone, we shouldn’t have gone on the raid. If the Met officer told us that there was full cloud over the target we shouldn’t go. We had a few cancellations like that. We were all ready to go sitting in the aircraft and then the red light would come up. No ops through, through bad weather. Icing was one of the worst most dangerous things. Flying through cloud with the ice.
TO: And before you joined the RAF can you, do you remember much about seeing the bombing of London?
HI: Oh I seen London. I was, I told you. We lived at Stamford Hill. It was a high, quite a high part of the ground and you had a first class picture of what was happening in the City of London. It was well alright. Really well alight. They caught the whole of the city alight. It was blazing. And that’s when we decided to join the RAF. A lot of the bombs were dropped scattered in London anyway. A hell of a lot of the bombs were dropped everywhere. Not in one area. Just dropped their bombs and went away. You know. It was over London. That was it.
TO: And do you remember seeing much of the Battle of Britain?
HI: Yeah we see a little bit of it. We were about fifteen sixteen then. Sixteen. And we was over the Lea. The big open open field by the River Lea and we had a grandstand view of the RAF Spitfires attacking the bombers and the fighters. We see them going down. Yeah. It was quite a battle. Yeah. And as I say they had a terrific disadvantage. The Germans. Because they had to come all the way over France before they got to England, and our Spitfires were waiting for them when they come here. They didn’t have that huge journey. They were more or less local. At Hendon they were at. Hornchurch. Yeah. Good job we beat them. But the Battle of Britain was no comparison. I’ll tell you now, no comparison to the Battle for the Ruhr. No comparison whatsoever. In terms of casualties anyway.
TO: And can you tell me a bit about the gunnery school course you went on?
HI: Yeah. When we arrived there we was told it was a six weeks course. I think we flew about — I’ve got it here. I know it wasn’t a lot.
[pause]
HI: In all I done nineteen hours flying. Nineteen hours. It’s frightening. And it was all firing at drogues. Two hundred rounds fired. All usual firing at a drogue being towed by an aircraft.
TO: Yes.
HI: Done six weeks there and I was straight on ops which was frightening really. You didn’t know what was happening [laughs] till, till you got there. Yeah.
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge? There seems to be a bit of birdsong coming through.
HI: Pardon?
TO: Is it ok if I close the door to the lounge?
HI: Yeah
TO: Sorry. It’s just a bit of —
HI: What? A bit of a reflection.
TO: No. There’s a bit of birdsong coming through. That’s all.
HI: Birdsong.
TO: Yeah.
HI: Yeah. Go on. Yeah. You don’t like birds.
TO: No. It’s just it might interfere on the film. That’s all. Sorry.
[pause]
TO: Nothing to do with birds it’s just it might be interfering in the background noise that’s all. I haven’t got a problem with birds. Sorry what was that. I couldn’t remember, what were saying earlier about the propaganda leaflets that you had with you?
HI: Nickel. Every time we took off there was a pack. A big parcel of nickels. Not on every raid but a lot of the raids and it was up to the engineer mostly to throw them through the bomb bay. He had a window at the side of him and he could open up and could throw the nickels into the bomb bay. So when the bomb bay, when the bomb doors opened all the nickels floated out. That was the idea of it. But our skipper say sod it and just used to ask one of the crew to go back and throw them out the bleeding aircraft. We don’t want to — ‘We’ve got enough on our plate without throwing out bloody leaflets.’ And it was a load of rubbish that the Jerry never took notice of. Just a waste of time.
TO: Harris said after the war he never engaged in pamphlet dropping for two reasons. One — it gave the defenders plenty of practice in getting ready for it.
HI: Yeah.
TO: And two it supplied a considerable quantity of toilet paper to the Germans.
HI: That’s right. Yeah [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Nickels they called them.
TO: And did you hear about Hitler’s invasion of Russia?
HI: Oh we heard about it. It was on the news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It didn’t make no difference to us. We were still building our forces. That was in nineteen forty — in the nineteen forty wasn’t it? Russia.
TO: I think it was ’41. Or around that time.
HI: Yeah. It didn’t bother us but my squadron, number 9 and 617 went to Russia before they bombed the Tirpitz because it’s such a long distance they had to refuel and on the way back they bombed the Tirpitz. And they were successful. They sunk that anyway.
TO: Were your, did you ever see the Tallboy bombs they were using?
HI: No. I never see it. No. Because by the time I was on Halifaxes then. There was only two squadrons that had the tall bomb. There was 617 and my squadron — number 9. They didn’t started bombing, didn’t start using the tall boy until the end probably the end of ’43. They caused a lot of damage. Caused a hell of a lot of damage. But there was only two squadrons that dropped it anyway.
TO: And what were conditions like in general aboard a Halifax?
HI: Just the same as a Lanc I suppose. Bloody cold. And that was it. A little bit more room. You could get out the turret and get yourself, escape a bit quicker than the Lanc. It was a bit easier. You could open the doors and just more or less crouch down and get out. With the Lanc you had to slide yourself out about eight or nine feet before you could get to your feet. You had to slide down and slide out. Of course you know you was locked in the turret. You locked yourself with a clip at the back and just clipped it and that. And if you were probably badly wounded — if you couldn’t undo it you was buggered. You couldn’t get out the turret.
TO: Can you please explain to me the procedure for boarding the bomber and taking off for a mission?
HI: Well it wasn’t a lot in it actually. The crew. The WAAF driver used to drop you at your aircraft. And then the ground crew would be there. And all you would do was. It all depends how long you’ve got before take-off. If you had, if you were on one of the early crews you’d be on the outside of the aircraft. I think nearly everybody smoked them days. They was all puffing, puffing on fags until they got in. And set the fags out and climbed in the aircraft. And the bomb aimer would start checking the — yeah. The flight engineer would start checking his stuff. The two gunners would be make sure the guns are working well and the ammunition was coming up. And then we was just wait for the signal. I’d pull up the ladder. Slam the door and then trundle down to the starting point which was a big cabin. And you used to wait for the yellow light. The green light to go on and off you went. You’d circle the aerodrome till you got to a nice height and then off you went. You was on your own, on your Jack-Jones. We had to keep looking out for other aircraft in case they came too close to you. But there was never never never any formation flying of a night time. Never. Never.
TO: Did you ever do formation flying during the day?
HI: Never. Well, I told you we’d done two daylights. All we were — one big group of ninety Lancs just flying along at thirty foot. There was no formation flying or nothing. There were just one gaggle, what we called a gaggle. And if the fighters had got amongst us we’d have had it. But we were so lucky with that Le Creusot raid. To go all the way there and back without seeing a fighter was incredible. We were right across France. And there must have been hundreds of fighters there.
TO: Was there, I know you mentioned that you didn’t talk about missions but was there anyone who ever said that they thought that the bombing wasn’t - the bombing or the tactics weren’t working?
HI: No. I never heard that ever. Never. All I ever heard was we were going over to bomb the target and that was it. There was never any mention of tactics not working. Never. Only until after the war. And now they realise that bombing was very very important. It was through the bombing that really stopped the Germans. Stopped all their, stopped all their production. All their production.
TO: And what was the procedure for coming in to land at the end of a mission?
HI: That was, that was difficult because you was tired , you were bloody cold, and you were wanting to get down. You’d seen everything. You’d seen some terrible things happening in the air and the trouble was you’d all rush back to try to try to get, try to be the first to land. And the trouble was there would be about fifteen of you all circling the ‘drome at different heights waiting to come in and it was bloody tiring. Because you were tired anyway especially with an eight or nine hour flight. It’s not only the eight or nine hours flight it was the hours before preparing before you went. It could be a long long long day and when you come back everybody was trying to get back first. The first one back landed first and all the others had to queue up. Flying round and round and round until it was their turn. What we called pancake. And you just came down. Once you landed oh, take your mask off and just relax. Yeah. Some of those raids were terrible I’ll tell you. You never knew if you was coming back or not. Never.
TO: And were you ever scared?
HI: Always scared. You had to be. You weren’t human if you weren’t. With that amount of flak that was coming up. You can’t explain to people the amount of artilleries shells that were coming up. Hundreds of them over the target. Hundreds of them. And on top of that you had to watch out for the night fighters. You had to watch out for blokes dropping bombs on you. You had to watch out for collisions. And on top of that you had to find your way home [laughs] and that was a bit difficult sometimes. We’d be flying. Where the bloody hell are we? ‘Skipper I don’t know where we are.’
TO: Did you talk much with each other during a mission?
HI: No. No. All we talked about was the business. Nobody, there was no — I don’t know about other crews but most crews I suppose, everybody kept quiet until they had something to say. Which is most, which is most important. You don’t want a lot of chat in the aircraft while you’re flying on ops. You want to be as quiet as possible. You never know.
TO: And did you socialise a lot outside of missions?
HI: Only with, with the crew. We always went out. If we went out anywhere it was always with the crew on the beer. We was always drinking. Always. Most of the aircrew were drinkers. Except my pilot. Stubbs. He never drank, never smoked and he never went out with women. But by God could he swear when we was on ops. His language [laughs] his language was absolutely vile. What he didn’t call the bomb aimer. The flight engineer. He never swore at me though. And you couldn’t swear back at him — he was a flight lieu [laughs] yeah.
TO: Slight digression here. Bernie Harris the chap I mentioned to you earlier.
HI: Yeah.
TO: He said, I think he said there was a member of his crew who could swear for about thirty minutes without repeating the same word and once accidentally there was some kind of radio error.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Started swearing for thirty minutes straight in to it. When there was some senior officers on the radio or something. And apparently there was, oh sorry, also some young WAAF with them at the time. He nearly fainted when she made the call. Yeah. That’s —
HI: Yeah.
TO: And, sorry you mentioned on the first mission you had to make a second bomb run.
HI: Yeah.
TO: Was that common?
HI: Not really. But this pilot, he was a good pilot and he liked to, liked to have everything right. It had to be straight. And if we’d have gone in and he hadn’t got the aiming point and he took the photograph. We come back with no aiming point. The raid wouldn’t have counted anyway. That’s why we went around again. Second run. It was dangerous but there you are. I always said it was like doing two trips in one.
TO: This is more a speculative question but do you think anything could have been done during the war to reduce the losses Bomber Command were suffering?
HI: Yeah. Had the turret. Had the turret underneath the aircraft. If they’d had the turret underneath the aircraft they would have saved a hell of a lot of aircraft. A hell of a lot. Then again I don’t know where they could have put a turret underneath a Lanc. You had your bomb bay which took up say eight tenths of the area underneath. And then you had your H2S. There was no room for a turret. No room at all unless you took the H2S out or you made the bomb bay smaller. The Yanks had it because their bomb bay was — they never carried hardly any bombs anyway. They only had a small area for their bombs. And we had a huge, well you know, they had the huge room underneath. It was enormous.
TO: And what did you think of German aircraft of the war?
HI: The what?
TO: The German aircraft of the war.
HI: Well they were good. Yeah. They were very good. Yeah. The only thing is the Germans never had a heavy bomber did they? They never had a heavy bomber. The bombers, the JU88 and the Messerschmitt 110 they turned into night fighters because they could stay up in the air, you know. About six or seven hours cruising about. But they never had no, and actually there was only the two bombers they had, the JU88 and the 110. And they couldn’t carry no bomb load. They carried a thousand pounder and that was it. Not like the Lanc.
TO: And how was morale in general in the air force?
HI: It was alright. Yeah. It was alright. Yeah. No one ever moaned. They knew that they’d, most of them knew that they wasn’t going to come back. That’s the most amazing thing of the war I think. They all knew. Most of them knew they wasn’t going to come back. Which was incredible. Incredible. To prove that everyone used to write a last letter. I never. But most of them did. Used to write a last letter home. They knew they wasn’t going to survive. They had to do thirty trips. It wanted some doing and come back every time. Wanted some doing. Yeah.
TO: Did people ever talk about friends that they’d lost?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. I’ll tell you the word they used to use. I’ll tell you now, was, ‘Gone for a shit.’ That was it. Nothing else was said. ‘Oh, where’s so and so today?’ ‘Oh they went for a shit last night.’ And that was it. Or got the chop. That was it. Never discussed no more. Another crew would come in. Same thing.
TO: Did you ever go to the cinema much during the war?
HI: No. Very rarely went. Very rarely. The thing for bomber crews was going up the pub and getting drunk. I suppose a few went — oh I think I went once or twice but mostly we used to end up in the pub. In the pubs in Lincoln. Mostly Lincoln. The Saracens Head. It was packed. Packed with bomber crews. Packed every night.
TO: And the newspapers that you had during the war. Did you ever read what they were saying about bomber crews?
HI: No. There wasn’t much spoken about the bomber crews. Not a lot. Not a lot. There wasn’t a lot of information about them. There was no publicity about them anyway. Only now and again when one of them won the VC but that not a lot. The bombing just carried on quietly. The government knew what was going on that was it. They public didn’t know. Only around Lincoln when they used to see about three or four hundred Lancs circling Lincoln ready to go.
TO: Was it very cramped aboard the aircraft?
HI: Well in the rear turret it was yeah. In the rear turret. And the mid-upper was very cramped, very very cramped. No room. No room for movement at all — the time you got your clothing on. And you had a seat a hard seat. I think it was armour plated seat we had and it was as hard as anything. Apart from that it was only because we were so young that we took it. But the oxygen used to make your throat and mouth terrible dry. You was breathing through a rubber oxygen mask — the smell of the bloody rubber. Yeah. Yeah. How I managed it I don’t know but I did. Incredible.
TO: If you want to take another break we can.
HI: No. I think I’ll have another drink. You’re making me bloody thirsty. Do you want another tea? Yeah?
[recording paused]
TO: So where did you keep the parachutes aboard the planes?
HI: It was on a piece of elastic outside the rear turret. About six foot back. There was a holder there and you put it in there and put a elastic, a piece of elastic held it. Sometimes it held and sometimes it didn’t.
TO: And did you hear much about what the Germans were doing in Europe during the war?
HI: No. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Never heard about the atrocities or anything. Never. There was never no publicity about it. None at all. Only after the war we realised that a few of them ended up in Auschwitz. A few of our prisoners of war ended up in Auschwitz. That’s about all I know.
TO: Have you ever visited any concentration camps?
HI: Yeah. I’ve been to Auschwitz. And after I’d come out from there I had a clear conscience. Honestly, I did. I had a bit of a conscience before about the bombing but when I went there and see what actually happened that was it. Last year I went there. Yeah.
TO: And were they, was it a 303 guns you were on?
HI: They were all 303s.
TO: And were they very effective?
HI: Useless. Bloody useless. Unless you got them like I did. About thirty — about twenty or thirty yards away. But apart from that they were useless. I think the gunners shot down a few but not a lot. They didn’t have to come in anyway. They had 20 millimetre cannon. And they could stand off and belt away at you and you just had to look at them.
TO: And did your plane ever actually get lost?
HI: Yeah. A couple of times we got lost. We sort of circled around and looked around until we see a, some sort of point that we could lock on to you know. The favourite point was a river or a, or the coastline. But you did get lost. A few times you did got lost. Especially after coming out the target you was bloody lost anyway. You had to set your course again from, from the target. And you were jumping and diving about. We had a good navigator. He was alright. And of course once we got H2S that helped us tremendously but they never, they never got that ‘til the later part of that war. It was brilliant. That showed you right, the outline of all the towns, coastline and rivers through dense fog. It was brilliant.
TO: And was that with equipment like Gee?
HI: Gee we had and that took us to the Dutch coast. And then the Germans blocked it. It was useless after that. We had to make our own way. And of course all we hoped for we could see the Ruhr Valley. When you got to the Dutch coast how far was the Ruhr Valley? Half an hour away by plane. It wasn’t far. And we just headed out on that direction and you were soon over the Ruhr Valley. And you knew when you was over the Ruhr Valley with the bleeding guns firing at you. But they never opened up properly until you started dropping the bombs on the target. They kept quiet. And of course they used to have the — I don’t know if you know it. They used to light huge fires outside the town. Huge fires. To make out it was a town burning so we’d bomb that. Which a few of them did.
TO: I didn’t know about that.
HI: It was open fields in the country. But it was mainly —
[Phone ringing]
HI: Is that me again?
TO: Yeah.
[recording paused
TO: Sorry, could you just —
HI: It’s five to two.
TO: I mean what time do you leave?
HI: Oh I’ve got to leave here at 4 o’clock.
TO: Ok. I’ll definitely be done long before that.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’ll definitely be finished long before that.
HI: I hope so because I’ve got to get ready as well.
TO: Ok. Sorry. And did the accuracy of bombing improve during the war?
HI: Immensely. When we got radar and H2S and Pathfinding it improved immensely. Accurately. Yeah. Yeah. And there was no problem with — the targets always used to be well alight when we got there anyway. And it was just a matter of dropping your bombs and getting out without being shot down. That was the problem. Getting away without being shot down. Yeah.
TO: What, what missions specifically do you remember the most of the war?
HI: Well the, the most vivid mission of all was the daylight raid on Le Creusot. Which was fantastic. To go right across France in ’42. Bomb. Bomb the target and come all the way back without seeing a fighter was incredible. That’s the most impressive one I know, and the bombing was very very accurate.
TO: Did you ever bomb German ships in ports?
HI: Well only Wilhelmshaven and Bremen and the Kiel. We don’t know. We just bombed the ports. I don’t know. I don’t say we hit a ship or not. I know 9 Squadron sank the Tirpitz. I know that. But I wasn’t there at the time.
TO: So, can you tell me which squadrons were you in during the war?
HI: Number 9 Squadron. Still flying now. They’re out in Syria. Number 9. 466. 158 Squadron.
TO: And did you hear about the invasion of Normandy?
HI: Well I don’t know about heard about. We see it was, we knew it was happening because the amount of aircraft in the air. Huge armadas of aircraft going over. So we knew, we knew the war was on. I was in Kent at the moment. At the time. Flying drogues. And we see it all happening there yeah. But I wasn’t involved in it anyway. Not ‘til later on. When I went back on my second tour.
TO: Sorry what — can you tell me again? What was your rank in the air force?
HI: I was a warrant officer. I was offered a commission but I wouldn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was silly. I should have taken it. I’d have ended up at least a flight lieu. But I, I didn’t refuse it. I just didn’t — all my mates took it and they all became commissioned but I didn’t take it. I don’t know why. I was happy as I was so that was it. I should have done though.
TO: And what was probably the most dangerous of the German fighters?
HI: The night fighter? The most dangerous was the JU88. Definitely. That was equipped especially for night fighting. It had all the radar on it. Heavy cannons. They had the Messerschmitt 110. That was a good night fighter. And the Messerschitt 109 they used. And the Focke-Wulf 190. Single engine. They used that mostly over the target especially if a bloke was caught in the searchlights. They’d just go straight for him. Bang. Yeah.
TO: If you got caught in a searchlight was it possible to get out of it?
HI: Very very difficult. Very very difficult. The only way to get out of the searchlights which we’d done several times was put the nose down like that and go starboard or port and hoping you could clear it. Sometimes, sometimes you did and sometimes you couldn’t. We used to see them captured you know with about fifteen searchlights on one aircraft. And then all the guns would open up and all you’d see was a great big puff of explosion and the smoke and that was another one gone. Simple as that. So, best to keep away from it if you could. But the one radar, the one that was run by radar you couldn’t get away from. It just went bang like that. Straight on an aircraft. No messing about. And once that got you five or six of the ordinary searchlights would come — because the radar one was blue and all the searchlight ones were white. And they just used to group you like that. The flak would come up. An enormous amount of flak. Bang. You didn’t stand a chance.
TO: Did, was your aircraft ever caught in searchlights?
HI: Yeah. We was caught a couple of times but lucky enough we done the dive and the turn and got away with it. But sometimes that was very difficult because sometimes you had your bomb load on and you fell. You fell like a stone and you hoped it would bloody well pull out at the end.
TO: And do you remember what you were doing on the day that the war ended?
HI: Yeah. I’d finished flying and I was, they’d posted me up to, after I had done me second tour they posted me up to, up to Scotland as an instructor. And I didn’t fancy it and then they posted me down to Blackpool. I was at Blackpool when the war finished. Being trained. Being changed to another duty because they didn’t want us no more in Bomber Command and we had to do ground staff duties. And they said to me, ‘What was you?’ I said, ‘I’m a tailor.’ They said, ‘We’ve got a job for you.’ And they put in charge of about twenty WAAFs on sewing machines down at Newmarket. That’s how I finished the war. And they treated the aircrew, they treated bomber crews diabolical. Absolutely. A lot of them lost their rank. They just said you’re not a flight sergeant no more. You’re an AC2 or an LAC. I thought it was shocking. Anyhow. But it didn’t, they couldn’t do that with me because I had the DFC up and I couldn’t walk about with a DFC as an odd, as a flight sergeant. So I was left. I was left as a warrant officer.
TO: Why do you think Bomber Command were treated the way they were?
HI: That I don’t know. That I do not know. I’ll never, I can never understand it and I never will. We won the war. We definitely won the war for bomber, for Britain. With our losses were horrendous and yet after the war they absolutely [clap] on us. Yeah. I think it was terrible. They treated us terrible. All the bomber crews were walking about after the war doing menial jobs. Sweeping up. Driving vans. Anything. They didn’t know what to do with us. What they should have done was demobilise us straight away. Said, ‘Alright. You’re finished. Go home.’ No. They had to wait another year doing menial jobs. There you are. And they wouldn’t give us a medal. Can you understand it?
TO: Can I understand it?
HI: Pardon?
TO: Can I understand why they were treated that way?
HI: Yeah. Can you understand why they never gave us a medal?
TO: No.
HI: The barbers got medals. The man that swept the roads got medals. The one that cleaned the toilet got medals. Bomber Command got nothing. Never. I don’t understand it. I don’t know. We should have got a campaign medal. We never got one. Which was terrible when you think of the men we lost. The men we lost. So all them men we lost in the war — all they’ve given them is a thin brass bar. That’s all they got. No medal. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
TO: And what do you think of the Memorial we’ve got in Green Park?
HI: Oh that’s brilliant. We made that ourselves. We made it. Not the government. We got no help at all from the government. I’ll tell you what happened. I was in the office and we got six and a half million pound collected easy. And who should walk in the office was two geezers from the VAT. They said, ‘We understand you’ve got six and a half million pound voluntary contributions.’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘A million of that is VAT,’ and they took it. There and then. And said, ‘We demand that you pay,’ and we made such a fuss of it and we got on to The Telegraph and we got the million pound back off the government — as a gift. They gave us our own money back as a gift. I think it’s disgraceful. All the money was for was for a Memorial. Nothing else. And they took a million pound off us. There you are. That’s the story.
TO: But what do you think of the Memorial itself?
HI: Oh it’s beautiful isn’t it? Fantastic. Yeah. And, and the Westminster Council said nobody will ever visit that memorial. It’s the most sought after memorial in the whole of London. More people visit that than any other memorial or, or museum. And the council said nobody — they didn’t want it. Didn’t want no memorial for Bomber Command. Can you understand it? Yeah. So that’s why I was so bitter.
TO: Did you ever — during the war did you ever feel any animosity towards Germany itself?
HI: No. Not really. No. No. Not really. No. No. We just went over. We knew what we were doing. We knew what we were doing. No. Not really. We couldn’t could we really? We were over there and back. We had nothing against the Germans. But after the war when we realised what they had got up to yeah but not before. Not during the war because we didn’t know anything about the camps. We felt sorry for the Germans being bombed like they were. Which we knew we was bombing. But we just carried on. Carried on ‘til the war finished and that was it.
TO: And how do you feel today about Germany?
HI: Well, they’re the same as us now aren’t they? No problem. They’re not going to be aggressive no more are they? We hope [laughs] What I’ve seen of the Germans they’re quite nice people. But there you are.
TO: What do you think of the atomic bombs being used against Japan?
HI: A good thing. A very good thing. In fact, in the long term — long and short term they saved millions and millions of lives. Because if they’d have invaded Japan there would have been millions of Japanese killed and many many thousands of Americans and British. They would have been slaughtered in an invasion. The bomb stopped it like that. Clear as that. Bang. Two bombs and the war was over. And the thing was what a lot of people don’t seem to realise — the Germans were on the verge of atomic bomb. And that’s why all the industrial places in Germany were being bombed. Because this government knew that they was on the doorstep of making the bombs themselves. They were nearly there. And they would have used it. Because they was desperate. They would have had one on Moscow and one on London. Definitely. Yeah.
[pause]
HI: You’re not killing the flies very well. I’m not having you around here no more.
TO: No. I got one. One.
HI: You got one. Yeah.
TO: Sorry. Now, how do you feel today about your wartime service?
HI: Not all that. All I know is I killed many many many people but as soon as I went to Auschwitz and that changed my view. Before that I had a guilty conscience of it because I knew I’d killed many many people but then I went to Auschwitz and seeing what was going on myself that was it. Finished. It was terrible. Have you been to Auschwitz aint you?
TO: No. No.
HI: You want to go there. You come out a different man I’ll tell you.
TO: I have however watched plenty of footage of all the camps when they were liberated.
HI: Yeah but you want to go there. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. What they done to those poor Jews. Babies, children, women. And we would have been the next ones on the list if they had got over the here. The Dutch suffered enough. I’ll tell you. They really suffered. The Dutch. And they’re more or less German and they suffered terrible.
TO: And did you — sorry, just keeping an eye on the time. Did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: Pardon?
TO: I’m sorry to ask this but did you lose quite a few friends during the war?
HI: All of them. Yeah. All my friends. Yeah. All the people you knew on your squadron. By the time I’d left they’d all gone. All been killed or were prisoner of war. Mostly killed. We, we took off one night. I think we was going to Essen and we was up to six thousand feet and above us — no underneath us there was a huge explosion. Two Lancasters. One from our squadron — one from 44 Squadron hit head on with a full bomb load. And we was just above it and we went up like a bleeding lift with our bomb load. Right up we went. Enormous explosion. Yeah. And the thing was, the most amazing thing, the pilot said, ‘Alright. Set course for Essen.’ Just like that. And we could see what was happening below us yeah. But it happened a lot over Germany. Collisions. Can you imagine pitch darkness? Five or six hundred bombers in an area of about ten minutes. All ducking and diving about in pitch darkness. It had to happen didn’t it? Yeah.
TO: Did night fighters ever make head on attacks on a bomber?
HI: Never. Never made that. That’s why I don’t understand why they put a front turret in the Lancaster because it was useless. They never made a head on attack. Because the two speeds together was too fast. So won’t stretch at night time as well. They always come from, they used to come from port quarter, starboard quarter or dead astern. And of course once they got the up and under that was it. The up and under. The up and under. Schrage musik.
TO: And how do you feel today about Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?
HI: I think we ought to get out and leave them to it. Let them shoot their bloody selves because there’s going to be a problem. A big problem. Especially if they allow them all over here. I think so anyway. We shouldn’t allow them in this country. We should let them get on with it. They’re Moslems. Let them fight it out amongst themselves because they won’t give no thanks to the Christians for intervening. I can tell you that.
TO: And what do you think of the films that have been made about the war?
HI: Well, what I see of the films today they’re all American. That’s all you see is American films. What they done. The British never made many films. They should have made more films about Bomber Command which they never. Have you ever seen a film about Bomber Command ?
TO: I’ve seen one. The Dambusters.
HI: Well, I mean the actual bombing of Germany. No. They never made a film and they won’t because they’re gutless. The government will not accept what Bomber Command done. That’s why we are in so much trouble. They’re embarrassed. They was embarrassed with Bomber Command and yet they told us to go there. It wasn’t us. It was the government told us to go. Well they told Harris what to do anyway.
TO: As a matter of interest I do know there are, there is a team of people, though they are struggling to get funding, of independent film makers who are, they aren’t even paying the actors, who are making a film about a Lancaster bomber crew.
HI: Are they?
TO: Yeah. But they’re struggling with funding at the moment I think.
HI: Pardon?
TO: I think they’re struggling to get the money through although they are filming it.
HI: As I say what have they got? Old men. There’s no young men is there? Have Are they going to have veterans making it?
TO: Apparently I think but it might be stuck in the planning stage that they do plan to make a remake of The Dambusters.
HI: Well, that wasn’t, that wasn’t the bombing war was it? The Dambusters. That was just a one off wasn’t it and I’ll tell there there was far far more dangerous raids than the Dambusters. Berlin for instance you know what I mean. In six weeks I think we lost over nine hundred bombers over Berlin. Yeah. Essen. Dusseldorf, Duisburg, Mannheim. Hamburg. And we lost thousands.
TO: And have you visited Germany recently?
HI: Yeah. I was there last week, last year. Went to Essen. And in Essen there’s a building there. There’s a huge, what do you call it? A big huge photograph about as long as this room on a building and it shows you Essen after the war. Every building was flat. As far as you could see was flat. Except one building. The synagogue. Never got touched. And it’s still there now. It’s a museum now. Wasn’t touched. But every building in Essen was blown down except that one. Incredible.
TO: How did you actually feel when you heard the war was over?
HI: It didn’t make no difference to me. I was a youngster. I was only twenty. Twenty one when the war finished. Didn’t make no difference to me. Just the war was over and that was it. Let’s get out. And of course when I got out I had a wife and a kid and nowhere to live. Nowhere to live. I had to go and live with the in-laws for a year or so which was bleeding terrible. There you are. And the few bob they gave us and the terrible demob suits they gave us were shocking. I was a tailor and I said, ‘What’s this bloody rubbish they’ve given us?’ Yeah. I know I’m a bit cynical but there you are.
TO: Is there anything else that you want to add about your time in Bomber Command which you feel is very important?
HI: Yeah. There’s one very important thing. I survived [laughs] I survived and I mean I survived. The amount of blokes I see get the chop was unbelievable. A whole squadron. You’d lose a whole squadron in about three or four weeks. Complete squadron. It would be renewed. New Lancs. New crews. The faces got younger and we, we carried on. In fact, people, they used to come in, in the crew room and see us, and look at us, and say, ‘Have you done all those amount of trips?’ And we’d say, ‘Yeah.’ Yeah. And we survived. And I took the place of a rear gunner who got killed. And I took his place and I carried on. He was only twenty. Robinson his name was. I took his place and survived. But we lost — I’ll tell you what. That squadron I was on. Number 9 Squadron — we lost eleven hundred men killed. Eleven hundred men. And that was just one squadron. And there was only seven men in a crew. Fourteen aircraft on a squadron. Can you imagine the slaughter? Yeah.
TO: That’s almost all my questions. I’m just scanning through now. Sorry. This is going right back to the start of the war now. What did you think of Chamberlain and him appeasing Hitler?
HI: Weak man. A weak man. He was a weak man yeah. He come back with all his crappy bits of paper. Hitler was laughing his head off. We should have had a man like Hitler on our side. We could have stopped him before the war started. All the socialists and labour all they wanted to do was disarm. Don’t have no armaments. And Germany was building itself up incredibly. We had nothing. All we had was the territorial army when the war started. We just started conscription, yeah, for the twenties. We had nothing. Germany had a huge air force. Tanks. We had nothing. Anyway, we survived though didn’t we? We did survive.
TO: What did you think of Churchill?
HI: Well he done a job. He did do the job. No doubt about that. He done the job. He was the man for the job. Nobody else. But he was the man for it. But he’s — people would never forget his politics before the war when we had two or three million people unemployed. Everybody was bloody hungry. Everybody was half starving. And the rich people were living and he was one of them. But during the war he had Hitler like that. Yeah.
TO: You know the people who, I know I keep coming back to this but you know the people who refused to go on bombing missions? How do you think they should have been treated?
HI: Well personally speaking I think they should have gone to psychotic hospitals and find out exactly what was wrong with them. It was definitely a lot of them couldn’t help it. I’m telling you that the bombing raids were horrendous. I’m telling you. It was absolutely frightening. And some, as you know not everybody can take it. A few of them couldn’t take it and what they done was they stripped them down and put them in prison. Which was all wrong. LMF they called it. And when they came out of prison they put a great big stamp on their record papers — LMF. And the whole station where they was posted to knew what he was. And they couldn’t help it. They couldn’t help it. It’s a shame. So –
TO: This is going to be an odd question now. Is there anyone you know during the war who you think seemed to be losing their mind from the stress of the bombing?
HI: No. I don’t think so. I think what might have happened — some of them were very very very heavy drinkers and I think that was what was stopping them from saying they didn’t want to fly no more. There were some very very heavy drinkers. I mean heavy drinkers. If they weren’t flying they was knocking it back. But that was a thing that. They should never have punished them. They should have just said alright you don’t want to fly no more. Take you wings from you. Put you down to a lower rank. Finished. They had to humiliate them and make them as if they were a disgrace which they weren’t. They just, it was just that they couldn’t take it. They couldn’t take it. That was all there was to it. Went on a couple of raids and they see what was happening. Probably lost a few mates beforehand. That was it. Some were married with children. They said, ‘I don’t want to go over there and get killed I’ve got a wife and a kid,’ you know. There you are. But they punished them severely for it. in fact if it had been in the First World War they would have been shot. Yeah.
TO: Another slightly [pause] question from early on. Did you ever have to go in an air raid shelters during the bombing?
HI: Yeah before I — no. I never went. I never went in an air raid shelter. We lived in a block of flats. We was on the ground floor. And my mother and father said, ‘We’re alright there. We’re on the bottom floor of the flats.’ Which was ridiculous because some of the flats we blew up during the war during the war they blew the whole bleeding lot up. The time they went in an air raid shelter. A lot of people went in the air raid shelters. But the German bombing was nothing compared with what the British done. No comparison. No comparison whatsoever. We was dropping four thousand pound bombs. You know the cookie. Blast bombs. A blast bomb — it dropped. As it hit the ground it exploded. The reason for it was to blow the rooves off the houses so that the incendiaries had an easy entrance into the building which did happen. That’s why there was such huge fires. The rooves come off and then we dropped the incendiaries. And they went right through the buildings. It was a terrible war. The Germans suffered terrible. How many women and children were killed I do not know? Do not know. Shame. There you are. There you are. We had to do it. We was told to do it and that was it and we got punished after the war for it. Right. I’m afraid I’ve got to stop you because –
TO: You’re quite right because I’ve quite literally run out of questions.
HI: I’m pleased. Really pleased about that [laughs] yeah I’ll have to go.
TO: Thank you very much about your plain speaking.
HI: We’re going to drop you off at the station.
TO: Thank you.
HI: Alright.
TO: Thank you.
HI: I’ll drop you off at Romford Station. And all you do is go on the station and then take the train. I think it’s platform four. I’m not quite sure. I think it’s platform four. And that’ll take you right down to Stratford and you get out at Stratford and you get on the Tube there.
TO: Thank you. And thank you so much for your wartime service as well.
HI: That’s alright. Yeah. Pleased to help you. I’m sorry we’ve got to rush.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAIronsH160730TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Harry Irons. TwoRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource02:44:50 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceTom OzelDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-07-30DescriptionAn account of the resourceHarry Irons lied about his age and joined the RAF aged 16. He flew two tours of operations as a rear gunner and mid-under gunner.CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.GermanyGreat BritainItalyAtlantic Ocean--North SeaGermany--Ruhr RegionEngland--LincolnshireEngland--YorkshireGermany--BerlinGermany--CologneGermany--DüsseldorfGermany--HamburgGermany--WilhelmshavenItaly--MilanContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie Williams158 Squadron462 Squadron77 Squadron9 Squadronair gunneraircrewanti-aircraft firebombingHalifaxLancastermilitary living conditionsmilitary service conditionsRAF DriffieldRAF Full SuttonRAF LissettRAF Waddingtonwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/260/3406/PGardinerEF1701.2.jpg3d1d6163b01832b82e5e90e52d7d1125https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/260/3406/AGardinerEF170809.1.mp3344ed80f38814e93bb28e5aed249c0bbDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceGardiner, Ernest FrederickErnest Frederick GardinerErnest F GardinerErnest GardinerE F GardinerE GardinerDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history interview with Ernest Frederick Gardiner (1923 - 2019, 1322805 Royal Air Force).PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-10-042017-08-08RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextGardiner, EFDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAGardinerEF170809, PGardinerEF1701TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Ernest Frederick GardinerRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundLanguageA language of the resourceengFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:25:04 audio recordingConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending OH transcriptionPending reviewCreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourcePam LockerDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2017-03-01DescriptionAn account of the resourceFred Gardiner grew up in Oxfordshire and worked in a furniture factory before volunteering for the Royal Air Force. He flew five operations as a wireless operator / air gunner from RAF Syerston before his aircraft was shot down. He managed to evade with the help of the Resistance until he was picked up by a Lysander. CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.BelgiumFranceGreat BritainEngland--Nottinghamshireaircrewbale outcrewing upDefiantevadingLancasterLysanderManchesteroperational training unitRAF SyerstonResistanceshot downSpecial Operations ExecutivetrainingWellingtonwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/177/2340/ABattyPH161014.2.mp35c4ac0fc187b4591d3ca4948980d7bafDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceBatty, PhilipPhil BattyP BattyDescriptionAn account of the resource19 Items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with Philip Batty (b. 1925). He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis early in the Second World War, his wartime service with 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner, and his long post war career. The collection also includes a number of group photographs of airmen after training, photographs of aircraft in southern Africa, his log book and propaganda material.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-10-14IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextBatty, PTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentCH: Right, this interview is taking place at Phil Batty’s home in Wellingore, Lincolnshire on the 14th of October 2016, it’s being conducted for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive. The interviewer is Cathie Hewitt, also present are Guilia Sanzone, Ann Batty and Chris Aram. Okay Phil, if you’d like to give me this information of your date and place of birth and your early childhood.
PB: Right, well, I was born on the 7th of March 1925, at a small village in Yorkshire. Er, my parents, my father was, actually in the Flying Corps in World War One, and he, he stayed in after the war and married my mother in 1918, but mother didn’t care for the Air Force, they were stationed at Castle Bromwich, and father decided that they would leave and he got himself a job as a draughtsman at Rolls Royce in Derby, but unfortunately came the depression and he was laid off, the only job that he could find was in the mines up in Yorkshire, which is where we went, but mother hated that even more, she was determined that we were not going to stay there [laughs] and er, we emigrated back to the West Midlands where father got a job with Walsall Town Council as a roads foreman, and, that’s where I was brought up and educated, at Elmore Green Central School. Mother didn’t care for that either [laughs] I went to sit the entrance examination for I think it was the King Edward Grammar School in Birmingham, I passed it but unfortunately Walsall refused to pay the fees. So, I was stuck in Walsall and went to Elmore Green for my secondary education. I was quite happy there, and, I stayed there until of course war broke out in 1939 when I was fourteen, I was just about to leave school anyway, I’d got a job at the town council myself in the transport department as a clerk, and, there I sat, waiting for things to happen. My brother Dennis, of course was a fully qualified wireless operator air gunner [indistinct], he was with 226 Squadron and once the army got themselves organised they all deployed over to France as the advanced air striking force with the British Expeditionary Force. They were equipped with Fairey Battles, a single engine light bomber, utterly unequipped to face the Luftwaffe, but there they are, and there we sat and waited. Dug a big hole in the back garden, built ourselves an Anderson shelter [laughs] and that sort of thing and waited for the real war to start, which eventually, it did, with a bang, crash, wallop, and, er, Dennis came home when the army retreated, they suffered horrendous losses. He kept a little diary while he was in France of his — of his friends who didn’t come back, because the Messerschmitts knocked them out of the sky like fly swatting really, er, but he came home eventually with his kit bag full of champagne and [laughs] and stayed with us for about a week and then went back, and his squadron reformed with Blenheims and were based at Wattisham, and there they started to bomb the Channel ports where the Germans were then assembling an invasion fleet. It was on bombing, there was bombing raids they went in, inland to bomb an airfield, and they were attacked by some Messerschmitts, the pilot was hit, in the neck, but Dennis shot one Messerschmitt down and that put them off, they left them alone and they got back to base safely and that's where all three of them were awarded the DFM. And, Dennis came home to celebrate. Unfortunately he was posted up to Scotland, I think he was going on the gunnery leaders’ course, but this is a week later and he was killed in a flying accident [pause]. This was my first [pause] real [pause] [cries].
CH: Would you like to take a break?
[interview paused]
CH: Okay?
PB: And er, of course, that’s the last thing my mother wanted [laughs] she said, ‘No, no way, you’ll never pass the medical’, ‘cause I’d had an ear operation, she said, ‘You won’t pass’, [interference] anyway, she said, ‘You’re not going until you’re called up’, and of course eventually I was [laughs]. Passed the medical, went for aircrew, went to Birmingham to the attestation centre, er, which was where they gave you a little exam to make sure you could read and write a little essay and that sort of thing, and, then they did [indistinct] a little test with a little machine keeping a dot in the centre, and they said, ‘Oh, what do you want to be?’, and I said, 'Well I want to be a wireless operator air gunner’, they said, ‘Oh you, no we’re, what about pilot, navigator, you know?'. I said er, ‘Well, how long’s that take?’. He said, ‘Well, you’ll be put on a list and we’ll call you when we want you’, but I said, ‘Will I be quicker being a WOP AG’, he said ‘Yeah a bit’, I said, ‘I’ll have it’ [laughs] and er, that was it then, er, course mother was dead against it, but I said, ‘I’ll be alright’, [emphasis] you know it’s, I hadn’t the faintest idea of course that the losses were mounting for bomber crews at the time but, anyway eventually I got this paper asking me to report to Lords cricket ground, I thought, whatever, funny place for the Air Force, but off I go and they were playing at the time, I think it was the West Indies, I’m not sure, but that’s where you got issued with uniform, numbers, 2220759, ha, ha [laughs] you never forget it [laughs] and er, all the stuff you needed, and put your civilian clothes in a suitcase and send ‘em home, and, we were accommodated in London, in flats at the time being, for a little while, and then put on a train to Bridlington. Bridlington by the sea, yes, and there we were taught to march, yes, and I thought oh God, if this is aircrew, you know, I thought we were going to fly [emphasis] but no, we were marching up and down the promenade and [laughs] and er, learning the Morse code and that sort of thing, signalling by lamp and all the rest of it, and er, we were there for about , I suppose about four to six weeks and then I was posted down to the radio school at Madley to be taught the real skills of being a wireless operator air gunner and, there started the real training really. Er, I was there, I suppose about eight months, passed out, but that was the real jump [indistinct] because when you got your brevet, you got immediate promotion to sergeant, and now this is a big lump, a big jump really, er, and I was posted at the same time over to a place called Staverton, just outside Gloucester. They had a sergeants’ mess, we had sheets [emphasis] on the bed [emphasis] [laughs] fantastic, and we had knives and forks set out in the mess, we thought, you know, we’ve started to live, yeh. Er, the other funny thing was that we were briefed secrecy, you will see an aeroplane here, which you’ve never seen in all your life because it hadn’t got a propeller, it just whistles, and of course it was the jet, the very first, and it did seem very odd I must admit. Er, and we were there for six weeks flying an Anson and that’s where I first met up with my navigator, John, and we flew together for some time, and I think it was when we finished at, there, we went off up north to Dumfries and by God it was cold, [emphasis] we were living in Nissen huts and they were freezing [emphasis] oh, one stove in the middle that everyone tried to huddle round and how it is, but, once again it was just about six weeks, and then we went to, down to the OTU, that was just outside Leicester, where we upgraded to Wellingtons and that’s where we got that leaflet, the operational crews were diverted in one night, and I must admit they all looked clapped out [laughs] very tired, but er, I think that, we went, OTU was where we first started to fly as a crew, we picked up a pilot, a co-pilot, er, I still flew with John Tidmarsh, we’d been flying together then for six, seven months or so, so we de-, decided we’d stick together and the rest of the crew could join us [laughs] which is what we did, as you do, a little band of men. And, we did, I think it was a couple of months on Wellingtons, flying round the countryside practising navigation, bombing, and waiting to march onwards which we did eventually. We were posted to a Lancaster conversion unit, and I think I went to the one just outside Newark, er, it’s in my log book somewhere, and that was the, yes [pause]. Chris’ll find it in there [pause].
CA: Winthorpe.
CH: Winthorpe.
PB: After I, after we’d finished at the, I remember looking at the, where we were, 'cause it had big chimneys at the end of the runway, and I said to the pilot, he's a bloke called Ford, Henry, I said, ‘I hope you can manage to get a Lancaster over the top of those chimneys’, Henry [laughs] ‘they look pretty ominous to me’, he said, ‘Don’t you worry Phil’ [laughs]. Anyway, we passed and eventually 'cause we are coming to right to the end of the war now, and I didn’t, didn’t think we were going to make it before VE Day, we just about did it, we would have done, but not quite. We were posted to a squadron, posted to 50 Squadron at Sturgate and, off we went, and we’d just done the, squadron commander flew with us and pronounced us fit to join his squadron and, but I think it was a week later that we had VE Day, that was it, the war was over. So, we came into the briefing room one morning and saw [unclear] the squadron commander and said ‘Well fellas, well done’, he said, ‘It’s over’, he said, ‘We are now part of the Northern Striking Force', he said, 'Who we’re going to strike I don’t know but that's who we are’, he said, ‘5 Group are going out with Tiger Force to the Far East to fight the Japanese, but we’re staying here, but I’ve got some good news for you’, he said, ‘You can draw some khaki drill’, he said, ‘'Cause we are off to Italy on Monday’, [laughs] he said, ‘What we’re going to do’, he said, he said, ‘We’re going to pick up some prisoners of war up and bring 'em home’, he said, ‘Everyone, yes’, he said, ‘Our [emphasis] prisoners of war [laughs] not theirs’, he says 'We’ll paint twenty circles on the floor’, he said, ‘You put twenty passengers each and off you go’. 'And it’s like an operation, there’ll be sixty or so aeroplanes and some are going to Pomigliano and some to Bari, but we’re going to [unclear]’, he says, ‘Now there’s three things, one, do not try and change your money on the black market, none of that, don’t go down to Naples and get drunk on the local vino, right, and make sure you look after the soldiers [laughs] 'cause they won’t have flown’ [laughs]. But of course they hadn’t, but they were very pleased to jump on board the Lanc, er of course it took a long time, I think it was seven or eight hours trip each way but they didn’t care. Is that what you’re looking at Chris? Yes, they called it Operation Dodge, yes and we did one or two of those and, that was how the — the war virtually ended for me.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back with you?
PB: Yeah.
CA: I don't think he heard you.
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back on the trips in the Lancasters?
PB: Pardon?
CH: Did you bring many prisoners back from Italy?
PB: Yes, yes, yes, and we landed in the UK at, Polebrook, yes, I don’t know how many times oh, er, eight was it, I don't know. Chris, I think is looking now [unclear]?
CA: Yes, at least eighty.
PB: I did several trips, anyway, yes, I remember that we went to see the ruins of Pompeii, John Tid — Tidmarsh and I, yes. While we were there we thought we might as well, yeah, yes, but, very interesting actually, yes, we did behave ourselves and we did realise that the best things to take out were cigarettes and coffee for trading, and er, we could hand those in and bring back jewellery and that sort of stuff, yes, from the Italians, yes, er, quite enjoyable. Chris is looking now in my logbook, which will be scanned presumably? Yes. The length of the time that the trips took, yeah, quite long, yeah, okay.
CH: What happened after you finished doing these trips bringing the prisoners back?
PB: That was it for the time being, erm, I was posted then to, out to Transport Command for a little while, and then the air force [background noises] in their wisdom thought [?], in their wisdom, sent me out to Southern Rhodesia for two and a half years, er, onto [?] the navigation training school, flying Ansons, where I had a marvellous time [laughs] I really did, I thoroughly enjoyed it, you know, there were no tourists, the game was wonderful, it really was, marvellous place. We went to Victoria Falls and that sort of thing, er, saw the whole of the country at low level 'cause we were flying Ansons, and the navigators for their passing out trip, we took 'em down to Cape Town and back again, and after two and a half years I came home, and I decided to stay in the Air Force and rejoin Bomber Command, and, they’d got Lincolns then, so I was back on the old Lincolns and posted to Wyton and I was waiting there when of course the atom bomb came in, and the old Lincoln, I’m afraid, wasn’t big enough. So we borrowed some B29s from the Americans, the air force called them the Washington, and er, we converted from the Lincoln to the Washington, and that’s where we ended up at, Coningsby er, on the B29 or the Lincoln, and that’s where I was for quite a while until I think that I moved around a bit, on coastal, I think that, I spent a —a little time converting, then I was posted out to Malta and did a tour out there, with my good lady [laughs]. The Cyprus problem blew up — [interruption]
CH: That's —
AB: And, we were doing trips from Malta to Cyprus, once round the island and back, sixteen hours [laughs] rather tiring, so they decided to send us out to Cyprus and, camp on the edge of the airfield instead, so we could do shorter trips. So, we ended up camping on Cyprus for a bit until it was [laughs], time for us to come home, which we did in nineteen, ooh, was that sixty we came home?
AB: I think so.
PB: Yes, something like that, and I was [pause] posted back up to, Coningsby I think.
AB: Topcliffe.
PB: Yeah, oh, Topcliffe one or the other, yes, and er, after that they sent me back to, Bomber, where I converted on to the Vulcan eventually, that’s where we stayed did we not? Yes, I think so. Yes, they, the Cypriots had taken the [background noises] the explosives in a sandwich — in a sandwich tin, just in it, just in between two pieces of bread and they put 'em on the hinges of the aeroplane and blew the wing off, yes, the pilots didn’t like it, no, weren’t too keen on that. So, they put closer guards on the aeroplanes, that’s the only thing they could do [background noises].
CH: What year was this?
PB: Yes.
CH: What year?
PB: Erm, gosh, what year was Cyprus Chris? It’s in there, when we're doing the Cypriot runs. Five, yeah, it’ll be listed there. [pause] 'Cause they were gun running as well, that’s what we were doing there [?] just trying to pick up the gun runners at night [background noises].
[inaudible]
CH: I'll pause that. What were you saying about the Cypriots?
PB: They were very clever in the way they smuggled their weapons and stuff in, that’s why we were doing these orbits around Cyprus at night to try and catch the boats, the little boats they used to get weapons over, and explosives and that sort of stuff, yeah.
CH: Was this the time of EOKA?
PB: Yes, exactly, yes, yes. [pause] I think it was eighty something, yes.
CH: That would have been in the fifties, nineteen fifties.
PB: Yes, that’s it [indistinct]. But I moved over onto the Vulcan, 'cause we went off to Finningley for our conversion and I’d only flown on piston aircraft, piston air, and I sat in this, monster and he said, er, ‘opening the throttles, full throttle’, whump, and I found myself up over my seat and I thought, good grief, [laughs], and I, I got the instruments in front of me 'cause we’d got an altimeter and an airspeed indicator, and he shot down the runway and I watched the altimeter go like that [laughs], winding upwards [laughs]. I’m not in a fighter but a fantastic performance, it really was, but I did get used to it of course, in the end, but, one or two of the blokes I flew with like Dave Thomas and, and Andy, could really handle a Vulcan well. Dave Thomas, when we’d, we'd done a display, we were coming home one Sunday and he said, ‘Do you mind if I try and roll it?’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t Dave’, and he did a roll and my desk lid lifted about half an inch and went down again, that’s all I knew, but somebody on the ground saw him, reported it to 1 Group Headquarters, and we were all summoned to see the AOC [laughs] 'cause we were both squadron leaders and he gave us both a right rollicking, and he said, ‘Don’t ever do that again’, [emphasis] well he said, ‘If you do don’t let anybody see you’, [laughs] ‘And would you like to stay for lunch’, [laughter] so he wasn’t really annoyed [laughs], but. Ah, ha, but, we did have some fun in the Vulcan one way and another [pause]. Ah. When we were training we were given a weekend off and, mother was always very pleased because we got a special, ration for aircrew and it added to her points, I think it doubled them just about and of course we got a free railway warrant, so I used to always, um, ask for a one to Birmingham and I used to exit at New Street station which was open and then catch the bus home, and that way I ended up with a few free tickets, you see, that I, I could use later on, which I did and during the war, yes it was very handy, but , yes every six weeks we were sent, to, to clear off and have a rest, eh, because we never knew but the sky over Britain was, must have been full of aeroplanes at night, that we didn’t know about, there was no radar cover, nothing like that, you just flew and fingers crossed, hope for the best that you saw everybody else, eh, fortunately we survived, no problems [laughs].
CH: Did you keep in contact with any of your crew that you flew with in the war?
PB: Yes, yes, eh, I haven’t contacted Henry, I did John Tidmarsh for a little while, I’ve lost contact with him.
AB: Johnny, Johnny King.
PB: Yes, but , Johnny King that, flew with since the war, yes, still in contact with him, he's in Canada but, we're in regular contact, yes, we flew together on, on Lincolns, yes, in fact he was a flight engineer and then, changed to pilot, trained to be a pilot, yeah.
AB: Lorenzo, Lorenzo.
PB: Yes, eh, anything else I’ve forgotten?
AB: Lorenzo.
PB: Oh yes, I kept in contact with Keith but he’s dead now of course, passed away.
AB: The Canadian ones, we’ve been over to Canada and stayed with them.
PB: But, [interrupted].
CH: Were there Canadians in your crew?
PB: Er, no, no there was, one Irish and the other one was a Londoner, the two gunners, yeah, one London, one Irish and one London. Paddy Mack [?], he was the rear gunner and there’s a little London fella, I can’t remember his name is the mid upper gunner, and I was the reserve gunner if necessary [laughs] but, I was never used [pause]. I think that’s about all I can remember, apart from the fact that flying was always cold, very, very cold [emphasis]. The only warm place in the Lancaster was in my position in fact, er, that wasn’t too bad, but the rest of them the Anson and the Wellington were perishing [laughs]. You used to wear as much clothing as we could to keep warm and you could hear the gunner in the back cracking the ice in his oxygen mask [laughs], crunching away [laughs], [coughs] but eh, you learn to live with these things [pause]. On Vulcans, Andy Milne and er, the rest of them [interrupted]
AB: Dave Thomas.
PB: Yes, but I think Andy Milne [interrupted]
AB: Jerry Strange.
PB: Was the best, 'cause we, we went on the bombing competition twice so we must have been pretty good [interrupted]
AB: And won, each time.
PB: But eh, yes, we beat the Americans at one stage but er, out in Barksdale, they didn’t like that very much [laughs], poor old, but they’ve been very good to us the Yanks I must admit, yes, um, but yes that was, that was a very good crew I must admit and we, we're still in touch, all of us. Yes, Andy's down in Devon with his own small holding, and, but our co-pilot settled in the Far East, built himself a house [unclear]
[inaudible]
PB: And er, my navigator’s still around, he comes, still comes to the meetings occasionally [pause] but, trying to think that’s, that’s about the limit of -. 'Course, there was our, my crash in the Vulcan, that was quite interesting [laughs]. Well we got to — went out to fly one day, Flight Lieutenant Galway was the captain at the time and, I was the AEO, Stan Grierson was the co-pilot, and we had, Alan Bowman and, was the radar. Anyway we got, this, almost brand-new Vulcan, it had got about ten hours on the air frame. Anyway, climbed on board, and set off and we were flying about an hour, when Ivor said, ‘The hydraulic pressure's reading zero’, I said, ‘Well tap the gauge Ivor, you know, use the old knuckle’, [laughs] he tapped it, wouldn’t come back you know, I said oh, ‘Hang on then I’ll see if it’ll move my,’ got a little scoop on the rover gas turbine in the wing, a little motor, I put my switch on and off, didn’t move, I said, ‘This looks ominous Ivor, it looks to me as if we’ve lost all our hydraulic pressure’, ‘But we’ve got air, we’ve got air, yes, have no fear, we’ll go back and use the air,’ he says, 'Okay, right', so we, we came back to base and um, burnt off a bit of fuel, you know as much as we could and then he said, ‘Right selecting emergency air, undercarriage down,’ down it went, bang’ [emphasis]. Two greens, one red. Oh dear, [sigh] ‘Which is the one?’ he said, ‘It’s the starboard wing, port undercarriage has not gone down and locked’. Now that’s bad, you can’t do anything about that at all. ‘I’ll check the electrics just to make sure that it’s not a fuse’, it wasn’t. So, he said, ‘Well , what about bailing out?’ I said, ‘Bailing out!, the nose wheels down', I said, 'I’ll go sliding out and the first thing I’m going to hit is the nose wheel,’ I said, I’m not too keen on that Ivor, if you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘The navigator and the radar might want to have a go?’ but, he looked at me and said, ‘No sir, I said, ‘What are you going to do Ivor?’, he said, ‘Well, I’m going to land her’, he said, ‘I’m going to try and land’, I said, ‘Well I'm, you are going to have two, three passengers on board as well, so to make sure you don’t clear off we’ll keep the safety pins in the seats all right, if you don’t mind, so you don’t accidently pull those handles and disappear,’ [laughs] he said, ‘Right oh,’ he said, I said, ‘Well, shall we prepare for a crash landing,’ he said, ‘That’s a good idea,’ so, we went through the drill, he said, ‘What we’ll do, we’ll pull the handle, get rid of the canopy, so that we can get out of the top at the front if anything happens,’ you know, that, and he said, ‘We'll, we’ll try.’ So he, he did a roller and it held up, but eh, and we went round again, came in, he said, ‘Well, here we go, hang on fellas.’ And eh, as he lowered the wing, bump [emphasis] down it went, straight onto the ground [laughs]. Round we went, twice [laughs]. We came to a halt about twenty yards from another Vulcan [laughs]. The bottom, our exit was okay, it was clear, actually, we could get out and the aero, the aeroplane was still upright, there was enough room for us to get out and clear off, which we did, as quickly as possible [laughs]. The aeroplanes left there with its wing on the ground, eh, yeh, a complete failure of the down leg had cracked [whispering], split, and all the hydraulic fluid had vented [?] to air. Nothing you could do about it [background noises].
CH: Let’s just pause this.
[interview paused]
PB: Crash landed twice in Rhodesia, [laughs] flying along and the pilot [background noises] said to me, ‘The controls have jammed,’ he said, ‘I can’t move the control column Phil, [background noises] can you come and give me a hand up here?’ I did, we couldn’t shift it at all, we were in a steady slow climb, so he said, ‘[unclear] I'm going to wind full nose trim on, we’ll go down and look for somewhere flat’ [laughs]. Which is what he did, [laughs] we did a very slow descent, we got two nav- cadets on board and I said, ‘Get in your crash landing position, it might be a bit bumpy when we land,’ but they [unclear] were very good you know, straight in, bent the props back and all the rest of it, chopped the ground up a bit, but er, opened the back door and the two lads jumped out, not even a bruise, yeah, yes. A clapped out old Anson you see, the control cables had dropped through the guides and jammed, you couldn’t move 'em, but there we are [laughs]. These are little things you’ve got to be ready for [laughs]. Yes, I had a time when I had to fly the aeroplane back when the pilot fell asleep, as well, poor [unclear] Freddy [laughs]. I said, ‘Fred, [laughs] we need to go back to base Fred’, [laughs] Fred Holloway, ‘What you say Phil?’ [laughs]. I said, ‘One eighty and head for Thornhill Freddy,’ [emphasis] [laughs] ‘oh, you’ll have to do it Phil’, I said, ‘Oh, crikey, I’ve not done this before Freddy,’ [laughs] ‘Nothing to it,’ he said, ‘Just keep it steady,’ he was right, you know I just [laughs], half an hour we were back over the top and he was awake by this stage. I said, ‘Do you think you could land it Freddy?’ oh, got the goose necks out there they are, I could see them, oh, he managed it. Ah, he’d been flying continually for, I think it was a week we’d been doing night flying and without any rest, or something like that, he’d overdone it [pause] yes, right oh, [pause] yes. Well the, the trips to the Congo were, well the Russians packed it in, they wouldn’t go, they, they’d got their aircraft out there, but , they said it was too dangerous, apparently. The weather was always icy [unclear], you know, going through the front but, we just, filled the old Hastings up with their soldiers and off we went and did it, but , we managed to get there and back okay.
CH: What was it that you were doing in the Congo?
PB: Ferrying the United Nations troops from, Nigeria and Ghana into the Congo to, as a peacekeeping — peacekeeping force really, because there were, having a, a dreadful war out there, Katanga, and political as well. They were slaughtering each other left, right and centre, as they do, out there, and so that’s what we were doing, ferrying the troops back and forth [pause]. RAF Transport Command, the black people saw 'em and thought they were commandos, that we were ferrying commandos in to attack them. And eh, we had to go through Leopoldville, which every time we went through, this chap in his ragged [unclear] came out with his hand, wanting so many thousand dollars so that we could go through and get into the Congo proper, where we wanted to be, and, I've forgotten how many thousand dollars we had to hand over, and if you didn’t they set up a light machine gun and trained it on the aeroplane, [laughs] so we paid [laughs]. Yes, we had to put on our United Nations hats, be part of the United Nations force, as opposed to the Royal Air Force [pause].
AB: I don’t know I didn’t hear what she said either Phil.
PB: Eh [unclear] yes, but , yes, yes, you never know — know when you were going to get through or not, that was the trouble, they tried to pull us back once because they thought we’d got the Prime Minister on board, they thought he was, the, the Prime Minister that had been giving them all the trouble, they thought we’d kidnapped him and we were taking him away [laughs] and they said, you must return to Leopoldville immediately, but er oh, it was old Bill Corker[?] who was flying, he says, ‘Tell 'em not bloody likely,’ [laughs] he said, ‘We’re going back to Accra as fast as we can [laughs] and we're not going back to Leopoldville, thank you’ [laughs]. Yes, that was their, the, the biggest problems were handling these people properly, so they could be very tricky these, black politicians. I’ve forgotten what his name was now but he was, [background noises] he caused a lot of trouble out there [pause], 'cause they’re all starving, and, we gave them all our food, all of us [unclear], as much as we could [pause].
AB: And this is one of the letters from the one he's talking about.
PB: Yes [unclear].
AB: Because they used to write regularly to us, letting us know what was going on in the other, the half and I just thought there might be something in here, erm, well there is about killing two Europeans before they got off, before we let you go we are going to kill two Europeans. I’d have to go through the whole of the letter for. I think they're the only two letters we kept, we had piles of them, didn’t we? [pause]. Yes, why I brought that out that was to show you that that’s how we used to communicate.
PB: I remember that, that’s the first time I saw Dennis’s name in, in print after he was , in the chapter called, “Men Like These”, yeah.
AB: Yes, it is only a small part of it, but I just thought that you would be interested, you know, because a lot of it happened in the era that you don’t remember. But, I think maybe David’s got the book.
PB: Oh yes, possibly yes, the one with the red cover, yeah, yes, bit tatty but , yes, yes it was a good book, yes.
AB: Any book that’s got a bit about the family in it, is good [laughs].
PB: I’m sixty, four, forty, KCs, but, as I say the aircrew of course, treat these things with er, well I, I can’t say it really, because its racist but er, [laughter] ‘Hello, hello darkies speak to me you black’ [laughs] and such like, as aircrew a lot, but, bit like that I’m afraid [laughs]. But, er, he’d never heard of it he said, but I said, 'Oh I can assure you it was an emergency [unclear] system during World War Two'.
AB: I know this has only got to do with [unclear].
CA: Not to mention the high jinks you got up to after a dining in night, and you decided to drive down to London to see the Queen, in a sports car, four of you, do you remember that?
AB: I remember them going, yeah. I remember them coming home [laughs] yeah, but that, is that the sort of thing you also want to know about?
PB: What's that?
AB: When you and, erm, what’s his name, all climbed into his sports car to go to visit his auntie, in London.
PB: In Mayfair.
AB: You and?
PB: Stan Grierson.
AB: And Ivor Galway.
PB: And Ivor Galway.
AB: All in their mess kit.
PB: Yes, not, not the best thing to do.
CA: Not having [?] imbibed a certain amount of alcohol?
PB: Weren’t in our right senses, no. ‘We’ll go and see my aunt, she lives in Mayfair [interrupted].
AB: This is from Cottesmore [unclear].
PB: 'She’s got a very nice flat’. ‘Okay Stan, yes, let’s go’. We get the car [laughs] oh dear.
AB: Carry on love.
PB: Yes, then all the wives panic, ‘Where’s my husband gone?’ [laughs]. ‘Don’t know, haven’t the faintest idea?’ We were on our way home, safe and sound.
AB: Yes, all of us were ringing each other up, the wives, to find out, is he home yet, to [unclear], Ivor’s wife, ‘No he’s not home yet, haven’t heard from him’, 'Haven’t you heard from them?’ ‘No.’ They were in London, in their mess kit, all in one sports car, they'd stayed the night, had their breakfast with auntie and then set off to come home. Arrived home at, oh I don’t know, maybe eleven o’clock, eleven am, to irate wives as you can well imagine, having been, been one [laughs]. Go on carry on, what happened then?
PB: Well, that was it wasn’t it, young and irresponsible, absolutely, totally irresponsible.
CA: As children, we were told you’d gone to see the Queen.
AB: Yes [laughs].
PB: Especially for a mature gentleman like you, yes.
AB: Well, you were the oldest member of the crew, you were the responsible one, all the others were young.
PB: Yes exactly, yes, I was the leader, yeah, yeah.
AB: I mean what a thing to do after a dining in night, you'll know about the dining in nights and how they, raucous they can get. Let’s go to London and see the Queen.
PB: It seemed a good idea at the time, yes, yes [laughs].
AB: You can imagine them arriving in London can’t you, all in their mess kit [pause]. Auntie didn’t turn a hair, did she?
PB: No.
AB: Gave them breakfast and sent them on their way [laughs].
PB: Yes, she did have a very nice flat, in Mayfair.
AB: It’s a pity those sort of things can’t come in the thing, 'cause they are hilarious, you know, but erm, what else did you do?
PB: Oh well, I’ve always been a good fellow you know that, I haven’t done anything.
AB: What about the ones in Nottingham? Auntie, in Nottingham, and Fosco?
PB: [laughs] Yes.
AB: I think we wives could write a book.
PB: Yes, come home, all is forgiven, Mother Vallance [laughs].
AB: This was, shall I carry on with it? This was one, one of the young men was, was violently sick when they went to stay in this house in Nottingham where they all used to go if they couldn’t get home 'cause the last bus went at seven o’clock at night, I mean, ridiculous really, so they used to go and stay, and he was very sick in the bedroom and he didn’t tell any of the crew, 'til he got home, and of course, she, the landlady went up and found all this, and she, she eh, was furious obviously. They all sent her a bunch of flowers and a letter saying, you know, we are sorry about this, and she wrote a letter back saying, all is forgiven, come home, love Mother Vallance [laughter]. 'Cause, this is when they were all at Coningsby.
PB: [laughs].
AB: But there’s lots of little stories like that, you know, that don’t come under the terms of flying, you know, but I think we should do a book on what the wives remember [laughs].
PB: Yes.
AB: Anymore?
PB: No, he’s still going strong, isn’t he Fosco?
AB: Yes, the one who was sick, he must be about, they were, they were all probably five or six years younger than Phil, he was the oldest member of the crew, erm, so he will probably be in his early eighties.
PB: Yes.
AB: Still lives at Coningsby. It's funny thinking about them all now, you know, it —
PB: Yes.
AB: 'Cause, Ivor Galway, the pilot of the plane that crashed, he used to live at Woodhall Spa.
PB: Yes ah.
AB: She had an unhappy end didn't she, committed suicide, a lot of the wives couldn’t take the pressures, as they were in those days, you know, the bomb and what not, you know. You, you never knew when they were called out on a QRA, does your husband, still do, is he still in the air force?
CH: No, it’s my son.
AB: Pardon?
CH: My son.
AB: Oh son. So, he would still do QRAs, rushed out in the middle of the night.
PB: Yes, that’s right.
AB: A lot of funny stories about QRAs and being called out.
PB: We used to wait for the call, ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller for Waddington QRA only, readiness zero two is now in force’, and jumped in the car and straight out to the aeroplane and fire it up and get ready. That’s what they used to do [pause].
AB: It’s alright, that’s just a little passage, from the book. They arrived at the door in their flying kit having been brought home by bus because they were all, you know, a bit shaken.
PB: The MO thought we were all shook up, he said 'Go home', yes, I said 'I’m not shook up'.
AB: And we didn’t care less anyway we were, we were too busy with our sherry [laughs].
PB: Yes.
[laughter]
PB: Yes, QRA was a bit of, bit of a, bit of a bind but eh — [interrupted].
AB: And your son will know all about that if he, do they still do QRAs?
PB: Yes, well I suppose they do really eh, sleep in your kit and er, be ready to go eh, at a moment’s notice and it was eh, sort of broken sleep, that sort of thing, mind you at the same time, the food in the aircrew feeder was excellent eh, 'cause we had our own little restaurant, yes, but , [coughs] and of course, you could probably go a couple of nights without being called at all, and then suddenly, you know ‘Attention, attention, this is the bomber controller,’ and eh, and off you’d go, but, but you took your turn, you weren’t on it all the time [pause].
AB: Can I speak [whispered]. 'Cause that’s how a lot of the wives couldn’t cope because they never knew when they were called out on QRA, where they were going and what they were going to do. They could have been called to Russia and when they've passed a certain boundary time, place, they can’t turn round and come home again, they have to keep going, and a lot of the wives, lot of the wives could not cope with this, not knowing when their husbands went out on a QRA call, whether they were coming home or not.
PB: Yes.
AB: Especially the ones who were called out on the, the last, the Falkland do.
PB: Yes.
AB: They actually all wrote letters to their wives because once they got out they wouldn't have been able to turn round and come back.
PB: I think the really serious one was the missile crisis with Russia, you know, with the ships eh, going to Cuba, and J F Kennedy was the really serious one [pause]. That’s where — where we were on full alert, ready, ready to go, actually. Not that anyone wants to 'cause you know well that, there'd be nothing to come back to, if it ever happens, that’s why we want to stop these missiles spreading, it’s very difficult to do but we must try our best.
[laughter]
CH: I shall end that there. Thank you very, very, much Phil.
PB: Yes [laughs].
CH: Thank you.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Philip BattyDescriptionAn account of the resourcePhilip Batty grew up in Walsall. He discusses the death of his older brother Dennis, a wireless operator with 226 Squadron, early in the Second World War. Philip volunteered for aircrew. After training, he was posted to 50 Squadron at RAF Sturgate as a wireless operator/ air gunner in May 1945. He was involved in Operation Dodge and United Nations peacekeeping in the Congo. He worked in Rhodesia and Cyprus and survived crash landings in a Vulcan and an Anson. He reminiscences about work colleagues and tells some humorous stories relating to his career in the Royal Air Force, which spanned 40 years.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceCathie HewittDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-10-14ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceCathie HewittJanet McGreevyFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:02:22 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextABattyPH161014CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainCongo (Democratic Republic)ZimbabweCyprusCubaEngland--LincolnshireTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1945-05RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital Archive226 Squadron50 SquadronaircrewAnsonbombingcrashLancasterOperation Dodge (1945)RAF ConingsbyRAF SturgatetrainingWellingtonwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/174/2336/ABellJR160130.1.mp3517b7df7cbd17f49be62471569c7dc8fDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceBell, John RobertJ R BellJohn Robert BellJack BellJohn R BellDescriptionAn account of the resourceOne oral history with John Robert "Jack" Bell. He was a Royal Australian Air Force wireless operator/air gunner and flew with 216 Squadron, RAF Transport Command from Heliopolis, near Cairo. Jack Bell was shot down and became a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany.
The collection was catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextBell, JR-AUSDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-01-30Transcribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentAP: So this interview for the International Bomber Command Centre’s Digital Archive is with Jack Bell the 216 Squadron wireless operator, shot down over Libya during World War Two and spent a number of years as a prisoner of war. The interview is taking place at Jack’s home in Surrey Hills in Melbourne. My name is Adam Purcell it is the 30th of January 2016. So Jack, might as well start with the early stuff if you don’t mind. Tell me something about your early life growing up, what you did before the war.
JB: Well I was born in 1917 and of course when I went to school it was the period of what was called the Great Depression which in both the UK and Australia the unemployment was about rating 30 per cent. And to look for a job, I tramped the streets of Brisbane for two and a half months without success, and my Sunday School bible teacher worked at a company called DMW Murray and he rang my mother to say send him, send Jack in straight away, and I was one of about twenty boys, they were lined up outside this accountant’s office and six of us were told to ‘stand over there’. That’s how I started work and I got, and I got one dollar twenty eight a week, of which I gave a dollar to my mother and two, two, twenty eight cents half of that was rail fare and the rest was mine to spend. We worked from eight thirty in the morning to quarter twenty, a quarter twenty past five and we couldn’t leave the department until we put the wrappers on until the manager left, which could sometimes be quarter to six. Well I struggled through that area and when I turned eighteen I decided I, I wanted to join the military, and so I went into the Australian military forces and an artillery section called the Fourteenth Battery Fifth Field Brigade, which was weekend jobs and sort of once every fortnight on parade and went on bivouacs and camps and I got, came out, finished up being the acting gun sergeant and, with twenty five-pounder guns and I could hit an ant hill, with ranging shots over about three thousand yards over a hill. So when the war broke out we were put into camp in Colander for a month’s camp. I decided I was going to join the air force. The reason being, if I could hit an ant hill over that far away, I’m going to get up in the air where it is more difficult to hit, and the strangest thing about it is all my mates who stayed in the artillery all came back home and I got shot down. Now, I tried to join the air force in Nov- end of November ‘39 and it was, I had to do an adapt, what they called an adaptability course, this was I had to listen to sounds and say yes no, yes no they were the same or not. I failed the course. Eventually I called up in aircrew in May 1945, passed the medical test sufficiently healthy to be a pilot. Well on the 24th of May we were called up and I was told I was a wireless operator air gunner. And the first interview I had was to see if I could do, become a wireless operator. I couldn’t, didn’t pass the test but I am now a wireless operator air gunner. We travelled by train from Brisbane to Benalla. Our initial training there was four weeks before we started and six months later about the end of, middle end of November, we finished our course and I was up to twenty six receiving and twenty four sending in Morse. We were sent to Evans Head to do our gunnery school. Now we had sixteen Fairey Battles which had been sent out from England a lot of them still battered with sh, shell shot holes. There were three of them actually serviceable. I can quite honestly say that my training as an air gunner was two flights in those Fairey Battles over a range, firing a GO gun and I never ever believed I ever even got anywhere near hitting the target, but we all passed out as they so desperately needed aircrew that we were all presented with our air gunners’ badges. And we left Brisbane on the first of Feb and went down by train to Sydney and about two hundred twenty five of us, pilots, navigators and wireless air gunners left on the “Aquitania” to go to Britain. We were going through the Indian Ocean when we were diverted to India. We spent a month in India, then went over to Africa, Port Tawfiq, we went into camp, which we actually erected the tents ourselves, or most of them we did. We stayed there for about six to eight weeks and I was sent to a little place called Helioplis, Heliopolis just outside Cairo to an aerodrome. And because there was not, not sufficient aircraft there, twenty five of us were sent to do a cypher course, which took three weeks I think from memory. Came back, everybody else was posted, I was left there on my own. Little did I know that I had been posted to 216 Squadron which was based on that aerodrome. Until, I didn’t find out until August and the warrant officer in charge came and said ‘Jack’, he said, ‘you should have been with us since May’. I should, how would I- I used to go to the warrant officer in charge and ask, ‘what am I doing, why have I been posted?’ So anyway I finished up on 216 Squadron which was equipped with Vickers Valentias. The Valentia was built in 1922, I’m not quite sure. It was a canvas aircraft, fixed under cart, and the pilot and navigator sat in the outside in the cockpit wearing pith helmets with a windscreen. Now as far as I can remember its top speed was about eighty two miles an hour although from information received it should have been about one hundred and twenty but, from what I understand what we went through, I don’t believe we got more than eighty two miles an hour unless we were going downhill of course, diving. But I do remember one incident that we were passed by a truck on the ground because we were flying into a head wind and we were going up the desert to a little place called Mersa Matruh. It took us nearly three and a half hours to get there and we came back, bringing back a few wounded from the front, which we brought back to Heliopolis. From then I was transferred to a Bristol Bombay, now this aircraft was ninety four foot wingspan and sixty six feet long. It was supposed to do one hundred and eighty miles per hour and the most we ever got it up to was one hundred and thirty two but its cruising speed was about one hundred and twelve. And our function was, bomber transport it had been taken out of bombers as it was only equipped with one GO gun forward and a rear turret, rear turret but if the air gunner sat in the rear turret, the bomb load was dropped and fuel was expended the tail dropped and we lost I think it was eight or ten aircraft that way before we found out that the main spar, had been altered by the ship builders Harland and Wolff to the design of eh, the Bristol Aircraft Company. We were then put on this range of supporting the long range desert group with supplies, fuel and dropping people behind the lines in landing grounds that were given numbers. The strange thing about the long range desert group was that they never would that, that, they, at the landing ground until after we landed, ‘cause they’d stay on the hill and come down, we would take all the stuff out of the aircraft and leave it there on the ground, we would help them load it onto their beach buggies. And they survived in that area in the desert for about six months at a time it was incredible that they, they had very little water. I mean there were a few oases at Dura, Bug and other little places that they managed to get water from. But they were operating from virtually behind the lines doing sabotage work. We also did train the first group of SAS troops that were formed by Captain Stirling, and the principle of the parachuting was that, a thousand feet was the height from which were supposed to be dropped. Which was the official, as I understand it, official height for the air force to, to do. But David Stirling said, ‘no it isn’t we are fully packed with eighty five pound weight, packed and need to do it from five hundred feet’. Well this strange mob, they were all sorts of people as a matter of fact I met Johnnie Gregson afterwards at prison camp. They were hard-nosed and they were tough men, they came from all walks of life through the British army, Palestinians and all types. And they did drop from five hundred feet. Of course it was a static line drop. So as the big sergeant major stood in the door, he pushed them out because the tail plane was so big if he didn’t push them out they would have hit the tail plane as they dropped down and the ‘chute would open and they would drift away. Now I didn’t go on an operation dropping behind the lines but, three of my mates did do and what they did, they had this delayed action little plastic explosives which they always blew off the port wing of the aircraft, never starboard so they couldn’t bastardise it to rebuild the aircraft. Sometimes it took them ten to twelve days to get back, walking back from where they had been dropped. And the stories that they used to tell me on how they walked on bits of rubber off burned-out trucks, their boots were gone and even to some extent they drank their own urine because they didn’t have water. They tried to get water out the old beach buggies and wind-damaged trucks on the way back, and some of them did perish. But in all it was a wonderful experience for a young fellow like me and the worst thing I think I’d ever had to do was we were flying to bring back the wounded from a tank battle at Sidi Rezegh in November 1942, no I am sorry 1941. We landed behind the hill and picked up twenty one stretcher cases. Now if you can imagine, men had been in tanks and those tanks had been hit and burst into flames, how horrific it was to hear those men crying out for water when you knew darned well you couldn’t give them a drink of water. And we did three trips this day, I don’t know how many survived the, the journey, we tried to do the best we could for them but I am sure that over half of them would have died. Now we certainly had our funny sides you know in life, in the desert. For instance there were probably a million flies per square foot, and our meals were generally bully beef and biscuits or goldfish, in other words herrings in tomato sauce. So our skipper used to say, ‘well lets go up for a bit’, and we used to fly around for half an hour and take all this goldfish and all this bully beef with us to cool it down and drop back, and we had to then, the crew, the aircrew would get it all together, grab the food and eat it best they could before the flies got it. We used to play cricket, had good times, we played poker did all sorts of funny things. But it was a very great curve of learning, it taught me tolerance of people, how their behaviour. And this day that we left on the 23rd of January 1942, I’ll never forget it, Tony Carter and I were not in a fixed crew, we were relieving people on different crews. We took off this morning round about eight o’clock, half past eight to fly to place called Msus and, we were taking up a couple of replacement aircrew pilots, some medical supplies and we were to pick up, as we understood it, a section of a brigade headquarters to bring them back. Unfortunately the actual British intelligence was two days behind what the, where the actual front was. So we flew up to Msus we were flying at three thousand feet above the cloud bank and as we approached near Msus we flew down from Derna down toward, Msus is south of Benghazi. Well the escarpment was coming up and we were flying down the escarpment and an echelon of 15th panzer division Afrika Korps boys were coming up to attack into Derna. Well the second pilot categorically stated that we were shot down by a tank which I never, never believe because the ground fire, they had bofors guns the same as we did and their anti-aircraft well, the shells to me were not eighty eight mils that was shot by a tank, they were more by point five. And these point fives rattled across the mainplane and down the centre of the aircraft, killed my mate Tony Carter, who was beside me who was the navigator, broke the leg of, the captain of the aircraft, the second pilot didn’t get a scratch. So ultimately he had to lose his leg the first pilot, and one of the pilots who was in the back, who we were taking up as a replacement he lost an arm and both of them were repatriated back to Britain in August 1942, which was good luck to them. Tony Carter was my friend we didn’t train on the same course, we went away together, we lived together for all that time, and the worse thing I had to do in my life was to go and see his mother after the war in August 1945. He was an heir to one of the largest car dealers in Sydney, Lartney Even Carter, and he was an only son and I can see it even now. I can see his mother looking at me with the belief in her eyes why was it my son and not you and I, I can never forget it. Well I finished up, operated on by a German doctor who incidentally happened to be a Harley Street abdominal specialist. He was one of the reparation doctors sent to England after the First World War and he was a very excellent, ‘are you married, had kids?’ and he told me, ‘they don’t trust me Jack’, he said, ‘I shall never be the boss, I’m only second in charge’, but he said ‘I went to Germany in August ’39’, he said, ‘they wouldn’t let me back’. Now I owe my life to that man and he came to me after about eight or nine days when I was being intravenously fed and he gave me eight vials of morphine. He said, ‘you are going to go to Tripoli’, which is four hundred miles away on the back of a three-ton truck with other wounded. He said ‘I strongly suggest you jab one of these vials into your leg in the morning and one at night time’. Well he did one, he jabbed my leg that morning when we left and unfortunately, that night I didn’t realise, what, actually how I’d be treated getting me off the truck into the little hospital area for the night. Well I was rolled off the stretcher, naturally travelling all day on these unmade roads, pot holes and all sorts of holes and damage, the fourteen stitches, lateral stitches I had were starting to break. So I jabbed myself with one of them morphines and the seepage was starting to come through, come through the bandages. Well the next three days I don’t remember because I made sure I shot myself in the morning and on the night before, before we got off the truck. Now the second phase of my life story is when we arrived at Tripoli we were taken to a hospital, I don’t think it was a prisoner of war hospital, because it was a brick building and I was cared for by a nurse, she would be in her fifties, spoke perfect English. This doctor came and inspected me and he said, eh, she looked after me and dressed me. Now the German doctor put two lateral stitches over the top of my fourteen stitches to hold the wound together, unfortunately every stitch broke. The bandage was just full and whole of my abdomen, my abdominal seal, my skin my stomach was wide open and he said, the doctor said, ‘well we will let nature take its course we haven’t got the facilities to restitch you’. Now that lady brought me a little bowl of pasta to eat and I couldn’t eat it, I couldn’t just eat it and she said, she cleaned me up and she said ‘well look, unless you eat you’ll die’. She went outside and there was a quince tree and she actually picked a quince and cooked it with sugar for me and gave it to me. Now that is the second person, the second, she was the enemy but she fed me that quince, sweetened quince and that was the way I started to eat again. I had very little to eat I was transhipped to Italy on a hospital ship, the “Aquilla”, which was a passenger ship that used to come out to Australia before the war. The matron in charge was Countess Ciano who was Mussolini’s daughter. She was, she made sure that she came and spoke to every prisoner that was in the, in the hold of that ship. We landed at Caserta, at Naples and were sent to Caserta and the doctor there, Major Martin, a British doctor, had nothing. Had no, no medical supplies and he said to me, ‘I can’t do anything I will just have to bandage you up’. Now the food was foreign to me, it was pasta, rice, boiled rice and so forth and they weighed me at the end of February and I weighed six stone four pounds. I was shipped up to a little place called Parma outside Milan for recovery. I sold my wristlet watch for two boxes of chocolates to give to Skippy Palmer who was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Australian navy, he was planning an escape. The silly orderly I sold the watch to showed it round to his mates and the plan, the plot was discovered of course. Now at that stage I could stand and I was bent over, probably about a thirty degree angle and they posted me to a punishment camp. Gravina PG 65, there were probably six hundred in that camp and I was the, the catering officer for the weekend. Now we got, I can’t quite remember which way it went but we got twelve broccoli and eleven cabbage or reversed and a bunch of fennel for six hundred men for two days. The cooks just bashed it all up, all roots and all and just put it into the big copper and heated it up and served it as a brew. Now the death rate in that little camp that I was there for the four weeks, was approximately six a week. They were just, we were starving and one of the fellows there told me that the original camp group was three thousand in Libya and of those three thousand, a thousand had died in the six weeks previous to that time from starvation. I was sent after being at Gravina I was sent up to a little place at Udine which is south of (it), Grupignano is just south of Udine near Trieste under the Dolomite mountains. Terribly cold in winter and hot in summer. The camp was probably two thousand Australians and fourteen hundred New Zealanders with odd Indian and Cypriots and South Af-, Canadians there. Now the life in the camp was if you behaved yourself it was alright, but if anybody caused a misdemeanour of some sort, like talking in the ranks while the count was going on, he wasn’t punished but the lieutenant, or captain in charge, would take six people out of the ranks and put them in a hut, in the jail for a week each. That was their way of punishing you, they didn’t punish the perpetrator. The food was inadequate, we were walking around the camp holding each other up, we were suffering from beriberi. Fortunately some Red Cross parcels did get through and at one time I remember getting one parcel to six men, there was supposed to be one a week per person. But we managed to survive and by the middle of, oh 1943, it was obvious that the Italians, had landed, the British forces had landed in Sicily and come up the, and they were going to give in. So the food improved, everything improved. As a matter of fact we used to play cricket there. I will never forget Sergeant Fitzy Vincent, his grandson played for New Zealand in test cricket, was the skipper of the hut that we played and the food was so (incredible) at that time we bet we would beat that hut, hut number 26 we were in number 32 and we played a cricket team each. Then I took eight wickets for two runs because I, with my stomach all ruptured I could only bowl a slow, slow left hand, right hand off break. And the balls were made out of coir string, because they wouldn’t allow us to have the ordinary cricket, cricket balls and we won the match. We had all the food we could possibly eat it was fantastic. Also played two up, we broke, I broke the bank one day after thirteen straight hits I backed tails for thirteen straight, the week later and Socksy Simon and Coffee Walpole were the runners, they ran the two up school. I had so much of their camp money, I gave it to the hut commander (Nocker) West and said right go and buy up, there was a shop at that time, they were selling bottles of marsala. I forgot how much they were but we got enough that I don’t remember the next twenty four hours. September the 23rd I think it was, Italy capitulated and the British sent messages to say stay where you are, you will be relieved in the next twelve to twenty four hours. The forces were down near Rome and we couldn’t work out how they were going to do that, but the Germans had us surrounded that night and the next day they put us on these cattle trucks to go to Germany. Well it took ten days to get to Stalag IV-B which was a little place called Mühlberg, which was just about on the Elbe River. It was south of Berlin, east of Leipzig and north of Dresden and two miles away was Falkenberg which was a railway centre, absolutely fantastic railway system there. What they didn’t tell us of course was that sixty kilometres away there was the underground factory for getting oil out of coal, it was all underground, which we didn’t learn about for a while but we eventually got to know about it. Now Stalag IV-B was probably at that stage the worst prison camp in Germany. It was thirty two acres and that, when we arrived there it was so full we slept on tents on the parade ground and it was the middle of October. The food was according to the Germans adequate, well it was sufficient to give us about, the doctors worked out about two thousand calories and we needed two thousand two hundred and fifty to keep us alive. Eventually Red Cross parcels did come in I think it was early December we got a Red Cross parcel which helped us immeasurably and it was January before we got into huts. At one time we had thirty five thousand prisoners in this thirty two acres. Now each hut was ten metres wide and thirty metres long, with an ablution block and another hut thirty metres long and ten metres back. We had four blocks of two in our compound, we had about two thousand one hundred, two thousand two hundred prisoners there. Our particular hut, we organised, coming up from Italy, we had a system organised in eating food, that you had a numbering system. You took your place in a queue if there was a hundred in the queue you took up ninety eight, ninety nine whatever it was but you remembered the one before you, the one after you and each day you went out and got that. Because at the end of, out of these big huge dixies they used to bring in you got half a litre of a scoop out put in. Well at the end there probably might be about enough for another twelve or fourteen to get second half scoops. So they, then they’d move back and those boys would then move up so the next day they’d get their share and it worked very well. A typical, it was either sauerkraut, millet, sugar beet or, well, a gruel of some sort, it could be endives there were all sorts of things in it, a vegetable soup. The Red Cross parcels in Germany were far more frequently issued than they were in Italy, but just enough to keep us going. And some of those parcels of course had particular marks on them. And we didn’t know, or the average prisoner didn’t know that these were sent out, they were actually sent out by MI5 and then there were, escape maps were put under the labels at the top and all that sort of thing hid. And a friend of mine Bennie Royle who was in the camp with me, badly injured, inoffensive looking bloke. He was the assistant man of confidence and I didn’t know until after the war was finished and we came home, what he did. He was on the escape committee and he used to collect that stuff and a man of confidence himself had to really say, no I can’t help escapees because he was the contact between the detaining power and the rest of the British prisoners. If he said, he said he would do something that would mean the camp would be punished so, it was offloaded to Ben and Ben used to get clothing, all sorts of stuff and he’d, they’d move it around, now there’s articles I’ve got, I went to a man of confidence and he wouldn’t do this and he wouldn’t do that. That’s right he didn’t do it, but it was being done and unless you are actually allowed and they’d given permission for you to escape, you couldn’t get anything. Because it had to be well organised because otherwise the actual stretch of supply would be found out. Now as the war continued, the Russians they lost sixty thousand Russians in the winter of 1941-42 when they arrived there from cholera, typhus and their, their death rate we got now our loaf of bread for three of us moved in, one loaf of bread three days, one loaf of bread four days, they got one loaf of bread for seven men for seven days. Their basis was that they couldn’t kill us they had so many prisoners that it didn’t matter, they were on top. Now when the bread parcels, bread trucks used to come in there was a tractor coming, two big carriers behind. It was all squares the camp and the road that come down and the road to turn right to go to the, the actual hut that stored the bread. The Russian boys used to stand all round on these corners any twenty to thirty of them. Now the guard was an old and bold from the First World War and he had a single bolt action rifle. They worked on the surmise he could only get at the most two shots away so they used to jump at these trac-, these trolleys, big truck bases, grab all the food and run. Now some did get killed. I unfortunately witnessed one day with two of my friends, Sandy Jones and Jimmy Edwards, oh a German warrant officer called an oberfeldwebel actually kicked a Russian to death. Stomped on him because he attempted to steal a loaf of bread. We couldn’t do anything, there was the guard standing there with his rifle at the ready, but that oberfeldwebel, I’ve got the facts of the case right here in this room. At the end of the war he was reported to the Russian before, when they came over and relieved us on the 23rd of May and the man of confidence said, gave all the information, ‘we have dealt with him’. In other words he was killed, in fact most of the Nazi party members of their guard system didn’t survive the Russians coming into the camp. We did have escape committees we had, we had tunnels dug. Unfortunately I couldn’t do very much with that. But I could act as eyes, lookout if there was anything. I used to raid the coal shed to get some coal, but Norman again a friend of mine living in Adelaide, he was only a little fellow, he was a wireless operator same as myself. And he used to go down the, down these tunnels and bring the sand, soft sandy soil out and his mate was Gil (Lenshort) who was six foot four and grandson of a German migrant and he was a builder by trade, so he was, he actually lined the tunnels with our bed boards and sheets of ply that came with the Canadian parcels so that people could get through the tunnel. In fact the French prisoners were amazing boys, there were about four thousand I suppose French in the camp. Gil got stuck one day, down, right down from putting a piece of board up on top on top of the bed boards. We were digging under the garden, French garden, the French were gardening there for the Germans to get vegetables and a tomato plant with all the soil dropped down on top of him. Of course we had a leg rope on and he was pulled out but he was black and blue when he got out. Now the French they didn’t say a word they just picked the piece of board up, they came over and they put it in, put the earth back and put another tomato plant back in. They were, they brought to our camp, you (couldn’t), unbelievable what they did. Of course they were given more liberty than we were because the Germans had their families under their control and so you know, but being prisoners for so long they were accepted and they could move round the camp and outside the camp with much ease than what we could. For instance we had a chap named Freddy Ward who was a policeman in New Zealand before the war, and he joined up and I think he was in the 19th Battalion I can’t quite remember I forget which one. But he was in the military police and he was in our camp PG 57 in Grupignano, Northern Italy, but on the way to Germany he escaped out of one of the, one of the trucks. Got to Croatia or Yugoslavia of course as it was then, and he did his bit. From what we were told he was, he was finally captured by the Germans and arrested, to be court marshalled, but he had killed five German soldiers. Now he was brought into the camp, a funny thing about the Germans at this stage you didn’t, weren’t sent into camp dirty and dishevelled, you had to be washed and cleaned, your uniform cleaned and you looked like a proper soldier to go in. So the word came out, walk round the compound, out everybody out, this was Bennie Royle and his mates organising this. I only knew one French POW named Pierre, I can’t remember his surname, but he was a nice fellow. They went into the shower block to shower, took a spare uniform with them. When Freddie came out of the showers he mingled with the French prisoners, they dressed him as a French prisoner of war and he walked out back to their hut like that and came into our compound. Was hidden in the ceiling of one of the huts by the New Zealand contingent on the camp, and the Gestapo put a watch in the camp in one of the huts. And he stayed every day there was a fellow there watching on the proviso they reckoned that one day he’ll walk past that window and we’ll get him. Well he walked past that window many, many times. Never was found we used to wave to the bloke as we moved, we’d go to soccer matches we waved and Freddie waved and talked and smiled. Course, he would lay under a little bed and got, a different hairstyle, he wore glasses, well he didn’t, put nothing in them, just the frames and you know the French were able to do that. Now the strangest thing that happened which I never knew about until 1983. There was a fellow in the hut number 32 I was in 32b, that’s right 32b, I was in 34b. Named Barrington, Winston Barrington he was a pilot. Now he was holidaying in Europe prior to the first, prior to the beginning of war with his mother, and in August ‘39 they were in Austria and his wife, his mother got very sick. So when war broke out, being in Austria he was allowed to leave and he went back to England but his mother was left in this hospital. And, Winston got trained as a pilot came in, got shot down, finished in IV-B and course the Red Cross advised the parents eventually where their son were, was. So she, in 1944, yes would be ‘44 she wrote to the, she found out that he was in our camp. She wrote to the hut, the compound commander IV-B. IV-B commander, he was a nice enough bloke he was a Wehrmacht boy he wasn’t a Nazi or Gestapo. And he gave permission for her to come to the camp and see her son. So she moved to Mühlberg and took a place, a room or something in the little village there and stayed, stayed there and every two weeks she was allowed to come in. They were met in the, outside the actual camp in the German camp area in [indistinct word]. Now that lady in November, end of October I think it was, it could have been November I think it was the end of October. The escape committee decided, Hitler made a statement that all POWs were going to be shot and all this sort of thing so, I feared for her life because she was a foreigner living in Mühlberg so, she was certainly being watched by the local police and that sort of thing but, they decided they would bring her in the camp. Now, the French POWs again, they took a uniform with them and they’d, each working day, went to work every day went to work they would drop a piece of this off in to this lady. And the final day came and it had to be done so, as you went out of the camp you were counted, so they doubled and they had one extra out of the camp so they would cover the one extra coming back in. Being in fives you can do that, but in threes, it is very difficult but the Germans march in fives, so put four in or put six in it’s still five, five, three four. So they brought this lady in, Florence Barrington. Now, John Bailey lived in that same hut 32b he was the secretary of the Mühlberg motor club that we had and he didn’t know and she lived in that hut and he didn’t know until they were relieved on the 26th of May, when they were taken out on trucks, that she was in that hut. There were six men knew in that hut that she was there. The French knew but they didn’t say anything, they were remarkable, remarkable the French prisoners. And she was guarded now in the finish I was told, I’ve got it all here she would go on parade and answer, yeah, to her name. Now, in 1983 she went to the Edinburgh POW meeting there the annual meeting and showed up. Everybody was surprised and her story went right round Great Britain in different newspapers her story was published and that lady lived there from Nov-, early November ’44 right through to the end of, the end of the war, incredible, incredible. Well there is not much else I can say, I can tell you a lot of stuff but the [laughs].
AP: That’s your story in a nutshell.
JB: That’s enough I think well, to this day I don’t believe we were shot down by a tank but, of course as a POW the story gets around you know. ‘Oh he was shot down by a tank’, and it became fact but it’s fiction.
AP: Yes
JB: It’s typical
AP: You tell a story often enough you start believing it.
JB: Well course that’s right yes.
AP: I do have a couple more of more specific questions I would like to get to but, the word came back to here I’m getting a bit loud. Anyway I’ll carry on. What I’m interested in, you never actually got to the UK did you?
JB: Only after the war.
AP: Only after the war so you were sort of on a boat going in that direction?
JB: We were under Bomber Command’s umbrella but we were in the Middle East and were just a Bomber transport section.
AP: Okay. So you said you were not in a particular crew, you were sort of an odd job.
JB: Well there were two of, there’s the, they were regular crews, but normally speaking in a transport group there is the pilot and navigator, wireless operator, or that’ll be (Ben) but, people get sick, you know, so we were sort of, ‘we’ll take your place today’ and will be there somewhere else tomorrow, we had, plenty of work, every day there was somewhere you went, we used to go to Cyprus, all round the place. But the flights were pretty short you know, two, two and a half hours and back. But we were coming back one day [laughs] from somewhere we had landed at -. In the distance we could see an Italian Bomber going one way we were going the other [laughs]. We were strafed by an ME109 one day we were damned lucky, we were damned lucky we were on the ground.
AP: What did you think of the, em, you know the first time you saw one of these Vickers Valentia beasts, well what was your impression? ‘What have they given me?’
JB: Well, I don’t know whether you have ever seen it, out at Tullamarine they had the Vickers Vimy that the Smith brothers, well that’s virtually what it was, that plane there. There was the Vickers Victoria, the Vimy and the Vickers Victoria which had a skid at the back and a fixed undercart. Now these were canvas and five hundred horse power motors. Then they made the Valentia which had a wheel at the back and we can [laughs], ah now well. But look, we had what aircraft what we had seen? We’d seen an Avro Anson, a Fairey Battle and that’s about all when we left Australia and out of those two hundred and twenty five odd blokes only thirty six came back anyway. Now the turnover of pilots, of forty pilots thirty eight were killed, twelve came back nine of which were prisoners of war you know. It’s, but the Vickers Valentia was like a bus [laughs] oh dear. All [?] you start your (landing) and we had to carry a fitter, rigger a fitter to wire up and a rigger to take the, all the (scissors) off the ailerons [laughs] flaps [laughs].
AP: It sounds to me that it wouldn’t have been a particularly reassuring aircraft in which to go to war.
JB: No not at all, but we didn’t know any better, I mean that was the, grateful you went there you know, you’re flying for the King and Empire, it was just accepted.
AP: The bomb bay then was that a step up or-?
JB: It was a step up but let’s be honest. I mean it was a huge thing, underpowered it only carried eight two hundred and fifty pound bombs. What’s that, it’s nothing and to drop them indiscriminately because the bomb aimer, the actual bomb aiming apparatus we had was so old you know. And the air gunner and the fitter and rigger used to throw out twenty five pound anti-personnel bombs out of the flare path, flare chute indiscriminately they said they didn’t know where they are, didn’t know. They sent us on these useless missions they were taken out of service they were just useless, absolutely useless [laughs].
AP: How did you find, after your experience of, you know you being shot down and badly injured as you told and, you go through all the, the three years as a prisoner, em coming back to Australia would have been a bit interesting I imagine. How did you find re-adjusting to civilian life?
JB: Very difficult, I couldn’t get over the squeaky noise the women made. I mean see, living amongst men for three and a half years and there wasn’t any WAAF in the air force when I went away. I only saw one WAAF the whole time before I was shot down, that was a wing commander on an advance party to Egypt to bring the WAAFs out to Egypt that was in I think November, December ’41, something like that. When I got back to England and we were put into these barracks in, in, where did we go to, oh, I’ll think what I meant, time lapse, Brighton. All, all the girls there were WAAFs and they were cooking and they were serving you and they were yap yap yap, and this high-pitched voice, we couldn’t attune to it, it was incredible. Well I must admit the British public they were hard, gee they were hard, hard pressed but by golly were they good to us. You know I mean I was given, when I went, when I got back the fellow said, ‘how much money?’ ‘Oh give me ten pound’, he said, ‘I’ll see you in the morning, I said, ‘no this will last me the week I’m a-’. He saw me the next morning [laughs]. ‘Cause I bought a pound of grapes that cost me thirty shillings, I went to a, to dinner and I ordered up and it cost me eight pounds and I was broke [laughs] I had a couple of beers and I was broke [laughs]. But when I went with one of my boys from the hut where I was living in Heliopolis, I was the hut commander and he was one of the fittest on the squadron, he actually lived in Brighton, we managed to meet each other and his wife was living there and they only had rooms that were in a building. And so I said ‘oh’, she said, ‘I’ve got to go and get some shopping, I’ve got to go and get the rations’. ‘Oh’, I said, ‘I’ll come with you’, because I never saw what the rations were like or anything you know. So I went into the fish shop and of course I had a brand new uniform on, you know, everything brand new. And then, we got standing in the queue and this fishmonger said, ‘lass come up’, he said, ‘who’s that’? She said, ‘he’s a prisoner of war, he’s a friend of my husband’s’. They gave her on my behalf double ration, free. Now, and the people clapped around and for me and I’m in tears, it’s hard to, to accept that, it feels sort of, this is [unclear], to think that. Oh, they were really wonderful people, they were, excellent, they were good.
AP: What was the reception like back in Australia, when you went to your home?
JB: Well, being not so well, when I got back to Australia we came back on the “Orion” through the Panama Canal and got into Sydney. And my company that I worked for, DMW Murray, had arranged for me to go to them that day to stay there. So I wasn’t with the whole group of people that came back to Brisbane. Eh I came back two days later so they went to march through the city. And of course the reception wasn’t like it was for the Japanese boys the next month because don’t forget we had been out of prison in May 1945 and didn’t sail home until August. Now we were all fat looking, all well dressed, didn’t look as though we were prisoners of war at all and the reception was, wasn’t too great. Now I was told, ‘why did I go to Europe to fight’? Now the bloody war in Japan hadn’t even, I mean, you know we went to the RSLs to join up and they said we will have to put you on a list because it was like a hundred people trying to fit into this house. It was just all these things that we had to accept and live with, try and live back again to get back to normal. It took me years to get back to normal. My wife can tell you, you know at night time I didn’t know what I was doing but I was thrashing around, kicking about and moaning and she said I still do it. But you know I don’t know that I do it but, it took a long, long time a long time, a long time, ehm.
AP: You em, you mentioned before we actually started that you give talks and obviously from the way you have told me your story here obviously you do this fairly often [laughs], are you pretty good at it?
JB: Well, I got more of the stuff there that I still haven’t told you of what has happened in the camp and that sort of thing, but I couldn’t talk, I wrote that story it’s not, it’s full. I told stuff that doesn’t appear in it. But it was the greatest thing that I ever did because it released me from not knowing, it was out, it was out in the world somewhere and it enabled me to talk to people that weren’t old enough to go to the war and wanted to know what happened in the war. Of course 1987, 1990 we’re talking forty years later so it wasn’t so bad, but the number of people I talk to it’s amazing you know, incredible. I mean I, I got stuff there that when Warsaw fell they brought in twelve hundred women, all Jewish girls of course, and they came to our camp now they were just picked up of the streets and put in these cattle trucks and brought in. They had nothing, just what they, not a handkerchief, not a, when they appeared at the camp they had nothing, and Pat (Noughty] who was from Western Australia and he actually married one of those girls. They exchanged addresses and he was the go-between. We got handkerchiefs, underpants, singlets and stuff and gave it to them. And, one of them must have survived because Pat married her, I don’t know what happened about it but, a month, two weeks later a group of boys came in from eight to eighteen you can imagine them eight to eighteen. These kids used to run round through the sewers of course, to bring messages to the, they went, they finished up in Dachau I doubt if any one of them back. But in our camp at the end of the war, I can never get this, twelve women came into the camp. I don’t know if you ever seen the Nazi guard for the Jewish prisoners with their grey and white full length like nightgown with a sort of [?] but terrible things. Twelve women came in, they were actually picked up off the railways by a couple of British boys that got out and found them down there. And they, where they slept, they slept in the signal box. No beds, bare foot, and that shroud, no underwear. So we brought them back of course we had taken over the hospital, our doctors had taken over the hospital and they were put to bed. Three of them got out of the bed and lay on the floor, they couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stay. Now how many survived, we know that some died, we don’t know how many, but true I saw them come in and there was not, there was no, what there was just sunken bone, shocking to see, shocking to see. I tell people that they, you know phew, I get so emotional but I am doing it for a purpose because we have twelve hundred widows of POWs living in Australia we only have three hundred and forty POWs left something like that might be a few bob each way. And the reason I don’t take anything I say, no I want a donation given to the POW society, and it has helped them because without people, without getting money you can’t function, you can’t function.
AP: Any closing thoughts, your, your service in general, your, your-.
JB: Well look, to say I enjoyed it all, it’s not right but look. I think it is an experience I would never ever do without but I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody to do it. But look it taught me tolerance; it taught me respect, understanding of other nations. See we had over thirty different nationalities in our camp. You get along, and you have to get along. It’s the same as our Society today we’re getting on. There’s always these bad apples, I mean they’re everywhere you can’t do anything about that but, it taught me you know, I welcome the people that live here, now that’s good. I’m glad that there here, it’s a big country.
AP: It certainly is.
JB: Only I wish the government would do something about our, proper structure, our railways, not roads, railways and transport, never mind.
AP: We won’t get into that I think.
JB: No don’t get into that.
AP: Anyway, all right if ah, that’s pretty well most of the questions, everything else you have pretty well covered or it doesn’t fit in with your service so, thank you very much.
JB: Thank you, thank you Adam.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Jack BellDescriptionAn account of the resourceJack Bell joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a wireless operator/air gunner and joined 216 Squadron, at Heliopolis, near Cairo. He flew in Valentia and Bombay aircraft in a transport role. On an operation over Libya, his aircraft was shot down by ground fire and he was badly injured. He was transported to Italy, on a hospital ship. He spent time in a prisoner of war camp at Parma and was then transferred to a punishment camp, PG 65 at Gravina. After an escape plot was discovered, he was moved to PG 57 at Grupignano near Udine. When Italy capitulated, Bell was transferred to Stalag IV-B near Mühlberg in Germany. Here he spent the rest of the war. He discusses his experiences of camp life, including smuggling Florence Barrington into the camp as her son was imprisoned there. Jack Bell was repatriated to Great Britain in 1945 and then returned to Australia. He discusses his difficulties of adapting to civilian life. CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceAdam PurcellPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-01-30ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceHugh DonnellyPhil CrossleyRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource00:57:14 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextABellJR160130CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Australian Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Transport CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.AustraliaEgyptLibyaItalyItaly--UdineGermany--MühlbergGermanyItaly--GrupignanoTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.19411942194319441945-05216 SquadronaircrewBattleescapingprisoner of warwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2205/LWoolgarRLA139398v1.1.pdf35b154fb1d680686ee063c2241368776Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWoolgar, RegReg WoolgarR L A Woolgar Jimmy WoolgarSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialDescriptionAn account of the resource17 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with air gunner Reginald Woolgar DFC (139398 Royal Air Force), correspondence to his father about him being missing in action and subsequently rescued from the sea, his log book, service and release book and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Woolgar and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning John William Wilkinson. Additional information on John William Wilkinson is available via the&nbsp;<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/wilkinson-jw-141/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWoolgar, RDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-04RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceReg Woolgar's observer's and air gunner's flying log bookDescriptionAn account of the resourceObserver's and air gunner's flying log book for Flight Lieutenant Reg Woolgar from 29 November 1940 to 21 July 1947. Detailing training schedule, instructional duties and operations flown. Served at RAF Yatesbury, RAF West Freugh, RAF Upper Heyford, RAF Weston, RAF Peterborough, RAF Scampton, RAF Barrow, RAF Manby, RAF Wigsley, RAF Sutton Bridge, RAF Fulbeck, RAF Catfoss, RAF Foulsham, Levant AHQ, Nairobi AHQ and RAF Ein Shemer. Aircraft flown were Dominie I, Fairey Battle, Anson, Hampden, Hereford, Whitley, Wellington, Manchester, Lancaster Mk 1, Mk 3, Mk 7, Oxford, B17, Master, Martinet, Halifax Mk 3, Tiger Moth, York, Dakota, Lodestar, Hudson and Argus. He carried out a total of 43 operations on two tours with 49 and 192 Squadrons as a wireless operator / air gunner on the following targets in France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden: Aachen, battleships in Channel, Berlin, Bremen, Brest, Cologne, Emden, Essen, Frankfurt, Fresians, Halse, Hamburg, Kassel, Kiel Bay, Le Havre, Lorient, Mannheim, Helsingborg, Oslo Fjord, Rostock, Wilhelmshaven, Flensburg, Frankfurt, Gdynia, Mainz, Munster, S.D. operations, S.D. patrol, St Leu, Stade, Stuttgart, Walcheren and Wiesbaden. Includes notes on crash landings and forced landings, ditching off the Isle of Wight, infra-red trials and a Cook’s tour in the Ruhr Hamburg area. Reg was assessed as having exceptional night vision, had proficiency record above average and received air officer commanding commendation on second tour.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceGreat Britain. Royal Air ForceGreat Britain. Royal Air ForceRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.FranceGermanyGreat BritainKenyaNorwayPolandScotlandSwedenMiddle East--PalestineAtlantic Ocean--Baltic SeaAtlantic Ocean--OslofjordenEngland--LincolnshireEngland--NorfolkEngland--NottinghamshireEngland--OxfordshireEurope--Frisian IslandsFrance--BrestFrance--CreilFrance--Le HavreFrance--LorientGermany--Ruhr RegionGermany--AachenGermany--BerlinGermany--BremenGermany--CologneGermany--Emden (Lower Saxony)Germany--EssenGermany--FlensburgGermany--Frankfurt am MainGermany--HamburgGermany--KasselGermany--KielGermany--Mainz (Rhineland-Palatinate)Germany--MannheimGermany--RostockGermany--Stade (Lower Saxony)Germany--StuttgartGermany--WiesbadenGermany--WilhelmshavenNetherlands--WalcherenNorway--HalsePoland--GdyniaScotland--WigtownshireSweden--HelsingborgNetherlandsGermany--Münster in WestfalenAtlantic Ocean--English ChannelTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.194019411942194319441945LanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceTextText. Log book and record bookIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextLWoolgarRLA139398v1CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne booklet192 Squadron49 Squadronair gunneraircrewAnsonB-17bombingCook’s tourcrashditchingHalifaxHalifax Mk 3HampdenLancasterLancaster Mk 1Lancaster Mk 3Manchestermine layingOxfordRAF FoulshamRAF FulbeckRAF ManbyRAF ScamptonRAF Sutton BridgeRAF Upper HeyfordRAF West FreughRAF WigsleyTiger MothtrainingWellingtonWhitleywireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2196/PWrightJ1519.2.jpg027390393d36c354a5e50a16262abb63https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2196/PWrightJ1520.2.jpgd77220c10aeb7a04c8ff18f8df9d36b0Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWright, JimJ R WrightPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-05-21RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWright, JDescriptionAn account of the resource91 items. The collection contains two oral history interviews with Jim Wright, letters, cuttings and photographs. It concerns James Roy Wright’s research into his father, Sergeant Arthur Charles Wright (1911 - 1943, 1149750 Royal Air Force) and an operation to Turin 12/13 July 1943 which caused 100 aircraft to violate Swiss airspace. Two aircraft were shot down or crashed in Switzerland. There are many photographs and details of the activities that night including reports by the Swiss authorities. The crews are identified with photographs and there are several photographs of the funerals at Vevey. Additional material includes aerial photograph of bomb damage in Germany. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jim Wright and catalogued by Nigel Huckins, with descriptions of official Swiss documents provided Gilvray Williams. <br /><br />Additional information on Arthur Charles Wright is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/wright-ac/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. This collection also contains items concerning Hugh Burke Bolger and his crew. Additional information on Hugh Burke Bolger is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/bolger-hb/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceSergeant Edward HigginsDescriptionAn account of the resourceHead and shoulders portrait of Sergeant Edward Higgins in airman's uniform. On the reverse '207 Sqn Lanc ED412 'O' 12/13/7/1943 Wireless Operator./ AG Sgt. E Higgins RAFVR Vevey'.
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographTypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPWrightJ1519, PWrightJ1520CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital Archive207 Squadronaircrewkilled in actionwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2157/PAndersonWG1501.1.jpg7b56e1e33a1edbd3942c4a2232ed28b3https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2157/PAndersonWG1502.1.jpgb42060dd1171a26b0a55038412311545https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/165/2157/PAndersonWG1503.1.jpg7c6b307925da21872d91af04c4271415Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWright, JimJ R WrightPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-05-21RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWright, JDescriptionAn account of the resource91 items. The collection contains two oral history interviews with Jim Wright, letters, cuttings and photographs. It concerns James Roy Wright’s research into his father, Sergeant Arthur Charles Wright (1911 - 1943, 1149750 Royal Air Force) and an operation to Turin 12/13 July 1943 which caused 100 aircraft to violate Swiss airspace. Two aircraft were shot down or crashed in Switzerland. There are many photographs and details of the activities that night including reports by the Swiss authorities. The crews are identified with photographs and there are several photographs of the funerals at Vevey. Additional material includes aerial photograph of bomb damage in Germany. <br /><br />The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive by Jim Wright and catalogued by Nigel Huckins, with descriptions of official Swiss documents provided Gilvray Williams. <br /><br />Additional information on Arthur Charles Wright is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/wright-ac/">IBCC Losses Database</a>. This collection also contains items concerning Hugh Burke Bolger and his crew. Additional information on Hugh Burke Bolger is available via the <a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/bolger-hb/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.Transcribed documentA resource consisting primarily of words for reading.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceSergeant William Gowland AndersonSergeant William George AndersonDescriptionAn account of the resourcePortrait of Sergeant William Anderson in greatcoat. and side cap. On the reverse
'George Anderson
George Anderson
George 5633
1942
19 years of age
R.A.F.V.R.
Sgt Wm. G. Anderson
Wireless.Op.A/G 1501026
Born. March 18th 1923
Killed on Opert
April 27.28 1944
Sgt Wm G Anderson
George
Anderson'
On a separate sheet
'Bill
1501026
Sgt (Wop/ag) William. Gowland Anderson
RAFVR
101 Sqdn RAF
KIA 27/4/1944'
Additional information about this item has been kindly provided by the donor.DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource1944FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photograph One handwritten sheetLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographTextIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPAndersonWG1501, PAndersonWG1502, PAndersonWG1503CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944-04-27RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital Archive101 Squadronaircrewkilled in actionwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/WoolgarR [Pesaro].jpg6696b37cde158c2d6a039b276028b19fhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/87/2148/AWoolgarRLA160614.1.mp3b9431c15a89852018320c9d130b2f688Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceWoolgar, RegReg WoolgarR L A Woolgar Jimmy WoolgarSubjectThe topic of the resourceWorld War (1939-1945)Bombing, AerialDescriptionAn account of the resource17 items. The collection consists of one oral history interview with air gunner Reginald Woolgar DFC (139398 Royal Air Force), correspondence to his father about him being missing in action and subsequently rescued from the sea, his log book, service and release book and nine photographs. The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by Reg Woolgar and catalogued by Trevor Hardcastle. <br /><br />This collection also contains items concerning John William Wilkinson. Additional information on John William Wilkinson is available via the&nbsp;<a href="https://internationalbcc.co.uk/losses/wilkinson-jw-141/">IBCC Losses Database</a>.IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextWoolgar, RDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-04RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.Transcribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentDE: Start the, start the interview.
RJW: On our seventieth wedding anniversary my grandson stood up and said Papa, Reg, Jimmy because they had all three, all three generations there. Sorry. Sorry.
DE: Ok. So this is an interview with Reg Jimmy Woolgar at the International Bomber Command Centre in Riseholme Lincoln. It’s for the IBCC Digital Archive. My name is Dan Ellin. It is the 14th of June 2016. Reg. Jimmy. Just for the start of this tape could you tell me about your early life and your childhood before you joined the RAF.
RJW: Well before I joined the RAF I left school in Hove and I joined the rates department as the junior clerk and it was really the office boy who made the tea but I became a valuations assistant in the valuation department there before the war and started to train as a surveyor and in 1939 on the 8th of December I went to the Queen’s Road Recruiting Office and I joined the RAF and there I was in a few days on my way to Uxbridge with about five or six other guys all from office appointments. When I joined I, like everybody else who wanted to join the RAF, I wanted to be a pilot. Well I actually went to the Queen’s Road office in September and they wrote to me and said, ‘We have an influx of pilot training but we can take you as air crew.’ I went to see them, asked what that meant. They said, ‘Well you will fly as a member of an air crew.’ I said, ‘Well can I ever become a pilot?’ ‘Oh yes,’ they said, ‘Once you’ve trained as air crew you can become a pilot.’ But of course it never happened because it just seemed to be that whenever I, wherever I went I eventually became an instructor and after being trained as instructor they didn’t really want me to be a pilot or anything else so I concentrated on doing wireless operating/air gunnery. That really is what happened to me before the war. Is there anything else you’d like to know?
DE: Well, yeah. What was, what was training like?
RJW: Pardon?
DE: What was training like?
RJW: Training. Ah. Well now we went to Uxbridge for the air ministerial [?] course, the square bashing. Famous words which you’ve used, heard before, you know the sergeant who comes in to the billet and says, ‘Anybody here play the piano?’ ‘Oh yes, I play the piano.’ ‘I play the piano.’ ‘Oh well you two go and move the piano from the officer’s mess to the sergeant’s mess.’ Having got all through all that, off we went. First of all we went to Mildenhall doing absolutely nothing because there was a bottleneck of getting to the wireless training school so we spent about three or four weeks at Mildenhall doing guard duty. Sometimes going in the cookhouse even and then we went to a station called North Coates Fitties on the east coast and we, we mainly did guard duty there. We were, it was a fighter squadron and we were sent out to guard the beacons around, around the runway, all that sort of thing. Waste of time but never mind. That took us until the early part of 1940 and then we were posted down to Yatesbury, wireless training course. I think that took, I can’t be absolutely certain, the dates are in my logbook but I think it must have taken us until about April, oh, yes, it took us ‘till about April and then we went to West Freugh on the east coast er west coast of Scotland for gunnery training and low and behold we all became sergeants. I can always remember the advice given to us by a warrant officer, the peacetime warrant officers and people of that ilk they did some, a little bit resent that air crew would automatically become sergeants but they did try to knock us into shape and I remember we had a cockney warrant, station warrant officer who tried to guide us on etiquette in the sergeant’s mess and he said, ‘Ah, er, you will be at liberty to invite ladies to a mess dance but make sure you invite ladies [emphasise] and not ladies.’ And he said, ‘Now you’ve got three stripes, the girls will be chasing you but just be careful who you pick if you marry them,’ and he gave jolly good advice, he said, ‘Take a good look at her mother because what she’s going to be like in twenty to thirty years’ time.’ Anyway, off we went. They sent us on leave and said that we would be, receive instructions for posting and we did. We, we, a new, another bottleneck for OTU so in the meantime we went to Andover. Now, Andover, I was there at the time of Dunkirk. I remember that because going into the local town, cinema and that sort of thing the local army chaps that were coming back from Dunkirk were a bit fed up with the RAF because they hadn’t seen any Spitfires so it wasn’t a very comfortable time but from there we went to OTU. Now that was number 10 OTU at Heyford, Upper Heyford. We had our first real flights. Started off in Ansons, staff pilot taking a delight in trying to do aerobatics in an Anson to see how many guys they could make sick but anyway [laughs] we, we were supposed to crew up but it was a bit of a haphazard thing. You found yourself in one crew one week and another crew the next week. I had my very first Jimmy escape there. Um, it had been snowing and we were grounded and then suddenly there was a break and we were sent off and I was sent off with a New Zealand pilot, Sandy somebody. I can’t remember, and he was a bit dodgy. Anyway, we took off and the cloud base came down, fog or, no, cloud base and I couldn’t get a peep out of the wireless set, I couldn’t get a DCM back to base so we stooged around for a bit and he said over the intercom, ‘Jimmy I’m going to land in a field.’ ‘Oh ok.’ I decided, I came out of the rear upper turret and I crawled back and I sat up behind him. He came down to a field, through a break heading for some trees I thought but he put his wheels down and of course it was ploughed field underneath the snow. He came in very fast and we went, tipped right over, right over. At the very last moment apparently, I never remember doing this, I leaned over his shoulder and knocked his, the quick release of his harness and he flew out of the cockpit and down. He hit the ground, he broke a rib I think, and the aircraft went over and I shot back, right back to the back bulkhead and I had a bit of a head wound but it wasn’t very much and the aircraft was a right off. Right. It didn’t catch fire thank God. We were called away. When we had the inquest with the CO I got a right rollicking 'cause I couldn’t get through to base on the radio but I couldn’t get anything out of it but I even got a bigger one for releasing his harness and they said, ‘That was, you should never have done that but you saved his life.’ They said that, ‘Had you not done that he would have broken his, he would probably, he probably would have broken his neck or broken his back.’ So it was a good thing that it happened but it shouldn’t have done [laughs]. I had another, I was in another crash there where we ran up behind another aircraft and damaged it and injured the rear gunner but I was at the far end so I was ok. But this seemed to happen to me for some reason or other and I don’t know why, at the end of the course instead of going off on ops with a crew I was what they called screened. I was a screen operator instructor and I flew in Hampdens and Ansons with crews coming through. Just looking after them actually. Making sure that the wireless operators did what they should do or got through if they couldn’t and that sort of thing. I was there for oh far too long. I didn’t arrive on to the squadron, 49 Squadron, until the 1st of September 1941. My very first trip was to Berlin. The very experienced pilot, Pilot Officer Falconer, who was quite elderly, he was twenty six so we called him uncle [laughs]. He eventually, he became a wing commander, he commanded a squadron but he was killed unfortunately. Very nice guy. Anyway, after we went to Berlin and on that occasion it was quite a famous one. Head wind going out, head wind coming back. Ten tenths cloud and nil visibility coming in. Being given the order to go on to 090 and bail out so we got there and Uncle Falconer said to the crew, ‘We may have to bail out chaps.’ So then squeaky voiced me from the back said, ‘Oh skipper, I’ve pulled my chute.’ Actually I’d pulled it on the way out and I was more scared of having a DCO that is, Duty Not Carried Out, DNCO and being responsible for returning than actually taking my chance with the chute so I kept mum, I didn’t say anything. And when I told him I can’t actually repeat for the tape exactly what he said but it wasn’t very polite and I don’t blame him. In actual fact he found a break in the, in the overcast and he landed with wheels down in a field at a place called Withcall. Withcall near Louth and um, er, near Melton Mowbray. It was under some high tension cables and it was so tight they couldn’t fly the aircraft out. They took the wings off and put it on a loader to get it back. That was my first trip. Baptism of fire. Every trip, nearly every trip has an anecdote but the ones that stand out are, we went up to Inverness or somewhere. I can’t remember. It’s in the logbook. Inverness or somewhere like that to do a trip to Oslo Fjord laying mines, being told, ‘Chaps pick the right fjord because if you don’t you’ll come up against a blank face of rock and you won’t be able to turn around.’ Anyway, we did. It was almost daylight all the time. Up we went, down the fjord, laid our mine. Coming back, on the headland, as we passed across the headland em we were fired on. Some light tracer stuff came up. Very small. I said, I was at the rear of course as the wireless op. I said, ‘Oh, let’s go around and shoot them up because there’s other guys behind us.’ And the skipper said, ‘That’s a good idea.’ So we circled around, we came back and all hell let loose. They peppered us. We had thirty six holes on our starboard side wing, starboard fuselage mainplane but it didn’t affect the aircraft. I think the flak was a little bit dodgy but anyway came back all right. As I got out of the aircraft the ground crew came and they said, ‘Hey sarge,’ they said to me, ‘Have you seen your cockpit?’ I said, ‘No, what’s wrong?’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it.’ ‘It’s got bullet holes in it?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said, ‘Look your flying suit’s all torn’. And there’s a bullet hole at the back of me and then you know after I’d been sent to recover [laughs]. They next came to me and said, ‘You’re never going to believe this.’ The upright of the gun sight on my VGO twin guns had a bullet hole through it like that. The armourer gave it to me. I had it for many, many, many years. Unfortunately, it was lost but it was, I was proud to be able to show a bullet came out [?] as I was looking through it [laughs] so you know why the name lucky Jim sticks doesn’t it?
DE: Yeah. Definitely yeah.
RJW: Well that was then. We were, er, we tasted one of the first delights of the master searchlight. They introduced a blue central searchlight beam, radar controlled I think and all the other beams came on it and we were over Hamburg and we caught that and we had a hell of a pasting with the flak but old Allsenbrook [?] was very good and he got us out of that. We had one or two other things but like everybody else did. You never got, you couldn’t get through trips without having some sort of trouble sort of thing.
DE: Sure, sure.
RJW: Anyway, my last, no, next to last trip of course was by ditching which I’ve written about. Would you like me to — ?
DE: If you could talk about that for the tape that would be wonderful as well. Yes please.
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Well here goes. We took off about, I don’t know when it was. We were on Hampden G for George A397. We em, we were going to Mannheim. I think it was our twenty third trip and by this time we were a bit blasé. We thought going to be a piece of cake this. Mannheim. Yeah. That’s alright. So we weren’t really worried about it. The trip out was perfectly alright, over the target there was some flak but it wasn’t heavy flak, it wasn’t very much and we didn’t think that we’d caught any but just as we left the target our port engine cut dead and Ralph wasn’t able to do the relevant, it just stuck there. So we started to lose height. We lost height, we were somewhere about seventeen, eighteen thousand feet and we came down to four thousand eventually. In the process of doing that we got rid of all the heavy stuff we could think of. The guns. The bombsight. Unfortunately, Bob, the navigator, Bob Stanbridge stuck all his nav gear into parachute, one of the parachute bags that he used to take it out there, opened the doors in the navigator’s position, they swing inwards and to get rid of the bomb sight and the nav bag went out as well so we didn’t have any —. Anyway, off we went. Ralph was getting cramp in his leg holding the opposite rudder because of the loss of the port engine. Bob tried to tie the rudder pedal back with a scarf but couldn’t. Then I had a go. That was the scariest moment of all 'cause I had to unplug my intercom and had to crawl underneath in the dark but I did — I did actually manage to tie it up and that lasted for a while. I sent a plain language message out while we were still over France to say that we’d lost our port engine and may have to bail out, and although I was never a good wireless operator and I hated being a wireless operator, that message got through [laughs]. Anyway, eventually the fuel was down to zero and Ralph said, ‘Well, we’re over the sea, we’re going to ditch.’ So by this time of course we’d got all the hatches open because we’d been ready to bail out so all the sea came in. Anyway, he made — he made a good landing on top of the fog to begin with [laughs] but after that he made a jolly good landing and down we went. We scrambled out on to the wing, on to the port wing. The dinghy was supposed to burst out of the engine nacelle because of an immersion plug but of course it didn’t but Bob knew the procedure and with the heel of his flying boot he dug into the port engine nacelle and pulled the plug and up came the dinghy and started to inflate. It didn’t fully inflate but it started to inflate and by this time the four of us were standing on the, on the wing. All our ankles were awash in water. We then saw that the dinghy was attached by a cord disappearing into the engine nacelle and one of us said, ‘Well if the immersion plug didn’t work this won’t work, we’ll be pulled down,’ and Ralph said, I don’t know whether he said, ‘Just a minute chaps,’ but I think he might have done. He undid his flying jacket, went into his tunic pocket, pulled out a little tiny leather case out of which he took a pair of folding nail scissors, he then — he cut the cord, he did the scissors up, put them back in the case, back in to his pocket and he stepped into the dinghy with the rest of us. As we shoved off dear old G for George went down under the waves and there we were. We had to pump the dinghy up with the bellows because it wasn’t fully inflated but we managed alright. We were absolutely enhanced with the rations that were actually sealed in the bottom because there was a notice on it that said “Only to be opened in the presence of an officer” [laughs] so we said, ‘Well good for you Ralph.’ He was a pilot officer. And come daylight, in the far distance we did just spot what we thought were high tension pylons and some cliffs and we thought, well we were heading for Scampton of course, we thought oh well perhaps we’d drifted too far north, over-compensated and we were off Yorkshire, Whitby or somewhere like that. Anyway, not long after that that disappeared, we drifted around. We used the coloured dye, fluorescent dye in to the sea to identify ourselves and paddled and paddled around and eventually came back and found we were at the same spot again. The sun came out in the morning. It was very cold and very choppy. It was the 14th / 15th of February. It was cold. Anyway, we suddenly saw a school of porpoise and that was light relief until one of the crew said, ‘Yeah it’s all very well but what happens if one of these guys comes up underneath the dinghy?’ he said. Furious paddling away. We weren’t really gloomy, I don’t know why. I seem to think oh yeah, well we may get picked up but for no particular reason. We did see an aircraft which we thought was a Beaufighter in the distance but it didn’t see us. We sent the flares up but it didn’t do any good and then quite late in the afternoon we heard an aircraft engine and out came a Walrus. Circled round, waggled it’s wings, stayed with us, only a short time and off it went and it was almost two hours later when a motor anti-submarine boat pulled up and dragged us aboard. Eh, first question was, ‘Where are we?’ And somebody said, ‘We’re off St Catherine’s Point.’ ‘Oh, St Catherine’s Point. Where’s that?’ ‘The Isle of Wight.’ [laughs] And instead of being off Yorkshire we’d taken a huge curve and we’d been flying down the channel so luckily our fuel had run out when it did and we didn’t go too far out but the other thing was that the navy crew told us, ‘You’re dead lucky because you’re near a minefield. If you’d been in a minefield we wouldn’t have come out.’ So it was jolly good. We um, we survived all that, all three of us. Jack had frostbite. I remember cuddling his feet under my jacket actually ‘cause he was very cold. He got frostbite because he’d been sitting in the tin and he’d had the hatch open all the way but that was the only casualty that we had but it was quite a week because if I remember rightly at the beginning of the week we went to Essen, which was never much of a cup of tea that place, it was always pretty hot. And in the middle of the week we went on the Channel Dash. The Channel Dash was when the Scharnhorst and the Gneisenau left Brest and that was quite curious because we’d been standing by for several days and we’d been given a sector. Our sector was off somewhere near Le Havre. If they ever got that far we were told that we would have to go out. On this particular morning after a while on standby we were stood down from the Channel Dash and the weather wasn’t very good but our bomb load was changed from armour piercing to GP bombs and we were sent off on a night flying test possibly for ops that night. We were recalled while we were actually in the air and sent off but not to Le Havre but off the coast of Holland because the ships had gone that far and been undetected and off we went. We didn’t see the ships but we saw, we think, an armed merchantman or something or other which was firing away but we didn’t really get near. The weather was so bad we really couldn’t see. What we did see, we saw a Wellington and we didn’t know that Wellingtons were on the trip but later we discovered that there was an armed, an unmarked Wellington which the Germans had captured and they were using it as an escort for the ships and it was coming in and some crews actually did encounter it firing you know. We only just saw it. We didn’t get through [?]. Anyway, it was uneventful for us in actual fact. I think we lost four crews out of the twelve that were sent up. I think I’m right about that but it’s in our journal. One more trip we did together as a crew and then later I’ll talk, I’ll talk about my rear gunner.
DE: Ok, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Our pilot, J F Allsenbrook [?] was posted away, the crew was split up. I think Bob Stanbridge was also posted but myself and Jack Wilkinson, Jack Wilkinson, he was the rear gunner we were left hanging around to be crewed up as wanted. Anyway, we started to crew up with Reg Worthy. A very competent pilot and we were very happy with that and in March we were crewed to go with him on ops. Unfortunately I had contracted sinusitis. Oh I remember. I’ll talk about that later, I’d contracted sinusitis and at times I got it very badly. It was very painful so I went up in the morning to sick call [?] — sick bay to try to get some inhalations to help me and they tested me and grounded me. They said, ‘You’re not flying like that. You won’t be able to hear anyway.’ [laughs] I protested a lot because I wanted to do the trip but no, no and when I broke the news to Jack he was extremely despondent. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to opt out. ‘I don’t want to go without you Jimmy because you’re lucky.’ I persuaded him that he’d be alright and, because I was replaced by McGrenery [?] who was a very competent WOP/AG who’d flown with me on a number of occasion and he was a hell of a nice guy. Sadly, the trip was to Essen and they were caught by an ace night fighter pilot called Reinhold Knacke on the way back, off the coast of Holland, just on the border and they were shot down. All killed. Reg Worthy and McGrenery were buried in Holland and Jack was washed up off the coast of Denmark. It’s quite amazing actually. And he’s buried in Stavanger. So there’s sad [?]. I had this sinus trouble. It was because much earlier on, on a trip to Brest we were in the target area and we lost oxygen and when you lose oxygen you dive down so we did a very steep dive very quickly and apparently my left frontal sinus became perforated. This bedevilled me a lot. In fact the problem was if you went through the medics with it too much you got yourself grounded and of course you lost your rank as a sergeant, you lost everything. So you didn’t sing too much about it. I remember that after the, after ops I was posted to a couple of training units. One at Wigsley. I’ve forgotten the name of the other just for the moment but it’s in my logbook, anyway, not far out of Lincoln and I can remember later on my wife came out to live in Lincoln. I remember we sought a doctor up in Lincoln in private practice to try and get some treatment for this sinusitis and you’re leaping right now to the end of the war. At the end of the war I was posted to air ministry, movement’s branch and I still had sinus problems and so I thought I’d seek the advice of the air ministry doctor. I got a good guy there. His advice was, ‘Well we can drill, we can drill a hole through the roof of your mouth for drainage but I don’t advise it. It may not be successful but if you had a couple of years in a warm dry climate that would do you good,’ and as a result of that I had a medical post for an extended period of two year service and I went, of all places, to Palestine of course but after that to Kenya but I’ll talk about that later on.
DE: Sure, yeah.
RJW: Anyway, coming back to 1942, during the ops period the intruders started following aircraft coming in and landing and so air crew were billeted out. We were sent to small holdings. I was sent to a small holding, an absolutely delightful elderly couple who had strawberry fields there. Very nice indeed. I spent one night there. I told them, ‘Take the payment but I’m not going to be here. If anybody wants to know, oh yes I’m here but I’ve gone to town.’ And with a friend of mine, Mick Hamnett from 83 Squadron, we found a couple of rooms in the City of Lincoln pub in, in the centre of Lincoln and whenever possible we actually spent the night there. It was quite a pub. It was run by a lady by the name of Dorothy Scott whose husband, Lionel I think his name was, was a nav, was away in the RAF as a navigator. Anyway, it was an air crew haunt. At the back of the pub she had converted what had been a store room into a very cosy bar and that was where air crew from various squadrons accumulated. In fact at the end of 1942, towards the end of 1942 my wife came up and we, we lived there, lived out there. Unofficially of course. And one night while we were out there was an incendiary raid on Lincoln, huge chandelier flares and the City of Lincoln was hit with a fire bomb, particularly our bedroom but the local fire brigade did far more damage with their water then the actual firebomb. Anyway, coming back to the ops period, I’m sure that you’ve heard all these stories before but of course we were bounded with rumours and things like that. The first thing we heard was that oh the vicar of Scampton did a hasty retreat when war started because he was a Nazi spy [laughs]. The other story was of the policeman who was standing at the erm, at the Stonebow one evening and the aircraft were taking off, going off and he made a remark to a passer-by, ‘It’s going to be pretty hot in Berlin tonight.’ It so happened that they were going to Berlin and he was removed. But the other story, well whether that was true or not I don’t know but the other tale which is perfectly true. There was a hotel by the Stonebow called the Saracen’s Head which we called the Snake Pit for some reason. Very good. Good food. You could get a steak there. Very nice. There was a barmaid there by the name of Mary. She was a New Zealander and she was older than any of us. She was probably late thirties, early forties. She was a charming lady and she had an amazing memory and she was our local post box because we’d been to OTUs either to Upper Heyford or Cottesmore. We’d got pals on that and then we were posted to squadrons around, different squadrons around Lincoln and you wanted to know how your pals got on and you could, you could tell her. She knew, you know, you know that George Smith or somebody would say, ‘Did he get back? He was on 44 on Waddington.’ ‘Oh yes he’s alright.’ All this sort of thing you see and the story goes and I think this is in one of Gibson’s books that at the time of the 617 training at Scampton Mary was lifted out of the bar and sent on some paid leave down at Devon. I don’t know whether you’ve heard that story before. Yes. It’s written down somewhere but I can tell you that that wasn’t a rumour. That was true. The other delightful story is really good. In those days there was a lady entertainer by the name of Phyllis Dixie. She was a fan dancer. Probably the first stripper in England right, and she was performing at the Theatre Royal. Some lads, some air gunners got hold of a twelve volt acc and an aldis lamp, got themselves up into the Gods. The end of the act was the dear lady removed her fans strategically as the curtains closed and they shone the aldis lamp [laughs] which I gather was true. Anyway, going on from Scampton and Lincoln I was posted, I was sent on first of all air gunner instructor’s course at Manby. Came back from there and instructed at Wigsley and then sent to Sutton Bridge on a gunnery leader’s course. I did rather well on the course simply because I think I was able to drink as much beer as the course instructor [laughs] and we, I got an, I got an A which meant I was a gunnery leader A and when I came back to base the gunnery leader said, ‘Oh you can’t be a, you can’t be a gunnery leader A, you can’t be a gunnery leader as a sergeant. You’d better apply for a commission. Fill these forms in.’ So, this is true. It was incredible. I filled the forms in and I said something about, ‘Oh I can’t remember,’ and he said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it they don’t check anything,’ he said, you know, I thought this was a bit casual. Anyway, anyway I did remember what was necessary and my interview, however I was, I had a sort of an office, well not really an office, a place, kept stores [?] and things like that where I operated from. Schedules of flying and things like that looking after air gunners as an instructor and one day a little guy came in, in to my office with some papers and in some flying overalls and one of the epaulettes was flying down like that so I didn’t know what he was actually and he started asking me questions about the, about the commission you know like, ‘What’s your father do?’ And that sort of question, you know. Anyway I suddenly looked at his other shoulder and he was a wing commander and it was the famous Gus Walker and this was before he lost his arm. I was on the station when some incendiary bombs were, no photoflashes or something, something went wrong with an aircraft out in dispersal and he rushed out from flying control in a van to try and get the crew out and the bombs went up and he lost his arm. He was a hell of a nice guy. So informal it wasn’t true. I think he became an air marshal, air chief marshal or something. A big rugby referee. And I think that’s about all I can think of that of that era but then when I went to, when I, yes when I was commissioned, commissioned, gosh when was it? Probably the end of ‘42 beginning of ’43, almost immediately I was sent back to Sutton Bridge as an instructor instructing gunnery leaders and then we stayed there. Oh well that was quite good. We had a number of Polish pilots who were really very good pilots and we did a lot of low level flying quite illegally. There was one stretch where a road and the canal and a railway was spanned by high tension cables and if you felt like it they’d fly underneath them if they could and pray they weren’t found out. But these guys were really, really low level and we used to, we had a front, there was a guy in the front, we were flying Wellingtons mainly, sometimes Hampdens but mainly Wellingtons and put a guy in the front turret and aim for a group of trees you know [laughs]. Dear me. Those were the days. And then we moved station from there up to Catfoss and there when I was at Catfoss my pilot, old pilot Ralph Allsenbrook [?] came back, landed one day and said, ‘Jimmy, I’ve joined 617 Squadron. It’s a special duties squadron.’ We didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about the, we didn’t know about, it was before the dam raids but we didn’t know what they were doing but he said, ‘I’d like you to be in the crew.’ So I said, ‘Yes. Good. Fine.’ I was a flying officer by that time and so I said, ‘How do you go about it?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘Leave it to me, I’ll push the buttons and see the CO.’ Well he did but they were adamant that I wouldn’t go. He said, ‘No, you can’t go. You’re an instructor, a trained instructor here. We want you as an instructor and,’ they said, ‘In any case Trevor Roper is the gunnery leader of 49 Squadron. They don’t need two gunnery leaders. So I didn’t go. Ralph wasn’t on the dam raid because I don’t think he was finished training, whatever it was but he wasn’t on it but much later on he was on another raid, I think it was the Kiel Canal and many of the aircraft were lost including him. It was bad weather I think mainly. So I was lucky again, I didn’t join them. But I did get a bit fed up with not, not being allowed to go back on ops and we had a guy, one of our instructor’s, fellow instructors, a chap called Griffiths I remember, he went to, left us and went to Bomber Command headquarters I think it was. Either to Group, no, it was Bomber Command headquarters that’s right and he came back, he visited the squadron one day and I said, you know, ‘Could you get me a squadron?’ You know. And he said, ‘You want to do a second tour Jimmy?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing a second tour.’ He said, ‘Yeah, leave it with me.’ So I got posted to 192 Squadron at Foulsham. I got, I got a rollicking from the CO at the, at Catfoss because of the gunnery wing, CO of the gunnery wing. He eventually found out that I’d, I’d wangled it through Griffiths you see but anyway I went. I arrived on the squadron which was fairly newly formed. It had been a flight before. I can’t, off the back of my head I can’t tell you the details of that but it was a flight and it had become a special duty squadron. It was doing radar investigation. We carried special operators. They were civilians dressed in RAF uniform just in case they were prisoners of war and at the same time David Donaldson joined the squadron. A hell of a nice guy. And it was a very happy squadron. We shared it with, I can’t remember the actual number of the squadron, six something, six hundred and something Australian squadron shared the station with us at Foulsham. A bit primitive but it was alright and I had about fifty gunners. We had two flights of Halifax 3s and a flight of Wellingtons and we also had some Mosquitos and a couple of Lightnings and we would fly with main force, carrying bombs of course. Not all the time but we did carry bombs and we were endeavouring, or the special duties operators were endeavouring to discover radar frequencies and wireless frequencies on which the enemy were operating. Early warning systems and the fighter aircraft they were using and that sort of thing. It was quite interesting. All highly secretive. They had a lot of gear set up in the centre of the fuselage and it was all screened off with canvas. You couldn’t get at it and you couldn’t get any gen out of them about what happened, but it was pretty good. We initially we flew as a crew. The leaders David Donaldson, Roy Kendrick the navigation leader, Churchill, he told me his name was Churchill actually, he was the signals leader I remember that. Anyway, and Hank Cooper who was the head of the special, the special duties guys and anyway, and myself as gunnery leader and 100 Group put a stop to that because they decided that if they lost the aircraft they lost all the leaders so we were “invited”, inverted commas to occasionally fly with a crew that might have been a bit dodgy to try and put a finger on if there was a weakness. So from flying with the very best pilot on the squadron suddenly found yourselves with the worst one but it didn’t amount to anything. It was ok. I didn’t have any scary times. My logbook shows the trips I took. We did the normal things with the main force. I didn’t do any Berlin ones. A bit late in the day for that I think but they were the ordinary trips that everybody else was doing. Oh well, there were occasions. We did stooge off from main stream. I think the theory, the theory was that if, they didn’t mind if we attracted the odd fighter so they could find out what they were operating on. Now look, here’s is a really good story. We had on the squadron a pilot by the name of H Preston [?] who was quite a joker. I flew with him on a trip and we got diverted on one occasion to a station down in 3 Group. Stirlings I think. And we had the usual eggs and bacon breakfast and all that sort of thing and we wanted to get back to base in the very early morning and when we got out to the aircraft we had quite a lot of air crew on the station walking around it because we had antennae sticking out all over the place, you see. So Hayden Preston was asked about a particular thing that was coming out of the back and he said, ‘Oh well,’ he said, ‘That’s marmalade.’ They said, ‘What?’ ‘Well haven’t you got that? They said, ‘No, he said, ‘What does it do?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘If a fighter comes up behind you and that’s turned on, it stops their engine.’ ‘Oh,’ he said. Anyway, off we went back to base and went through briefing and about half way through the morning a loud shout from the CO’s office, ‘Hayden Preston’s crew to my office immediately.’ Off we trot to his office. David Donaldson said, ‘HP, what’s all this thing you’ve been talking about down at,’ wherever we were.’ ‘I don’t know sir.’ He said, ‘I’ve had Group on to me.’ He said, ‘Crews down there are on to their CO, been on to their Group, been on to 100 Group.’ He said, ‘They might have even got the Bomber Command, I don’t know, but they all want marmalade.’ See. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I was pulling their leg.’ [laughter] Anyway, we walked out of the CO’s office, walking off. David sticks his head out of the door, ‘HP. Why marmalade?’ He said, ‘Well I thought I’d be topical because we’ve been doing jamming.’ [laughs] You know.
DE: Of course. Yeah.
RJW: I did find, I must say I found my second tour very much easier than my first tour. Mind you I was privileged I suppose, in actual fact. I recognise that but it was a time when all the heavies were going. The raids were very heavy indeed but I didn’t, I didn’t seem to run into any trouble at all. Anyway, we were, we were flying on the very last trip. I flew on the very last trip to a place called Flensburg which was very near to the something lunars, is it? I can’t remember the name. The place where the armistice was signed on the Danish peninsula on the night before. The idea was to make sure they signed it. We were one of the last aircraft to return and there’s always been a bit of a fight as to who was the last aircraft over the target in the war. All I can say we might have been one of them. [laughs] Anyway, war ended and we started having, we started taking station personnel on tours. Flying, flying over the cities and back again. We did two or three trips. We landed over there at some of the stations. Went to Northern Germany and I don’t know, somewhere in Denmark I think in actual fact. We were taking people and coming back. Anyway, by about the middle of, probably a bit later then by the middle ‘45, July maybe, something. I don’t know. We were being posted to various parts and we were asked what would we to do. Anything we’d particularly to do before we were demobbed and so I said I’d like to be a, what do they call them, Queen’s courier, you know, King’s courier. That’s right. Thought that would be interesting. No. No. Can’t do that. Eventually I got sent to Air Ministry in High Holborn in the movements branch. It was at the time when there was some big food crisis going on and lots of VIPs were going backwards and forwards to America and we were finding aircraft from Blackbushe to get there. We were dodging around all over the place setting up aircraft, setting up things. Anyway we, I was there for a while and I was conscious of the fact that my sinus was still with me so I thought I’d take the opportunity to get the, unless I’ve already said this.
DE: Well you said you’d come back to it so, yeah.
RJW: Oh I see. I’d take the opportunity to get the air ministry doctor people to say what I could do about it and one of them suggested that they could drill a hole through the roof of the mouth which was painful and not necessarily successful and he did suggest a warm dry climate would probably heal the perforation. Anyway, eventually I signed on for an extra two years and I was posted overseas. Of all places my initial posting was to Palestine. There I was, there I was air movement’s staff officer, they called me and I was secretary and chairman of the air priorities board. Because there was a lack of civilian passenger aircraft we were providing passages through UK for the army, navy, air force and the other government people. The Air Priorities Board would look at applications and give them the priorities as they needed them and that was the job that I was doing. I remember I was, we had our officer’s mess and the [unclear] overlooking the mass cityscape [?]. The whole city was out of bounds to us which meant of course we went there [laughs]. At various times we had to be armed and it was quite, quite a time in actual fact but the one big thing that did happen we had a number of atrocities by the Stern gang and the Ernham vi [?] Lohamei. They were trying to get rid of the British. Didn’t seem to be any trouble between the Arabs and the Jews. It was the Jews and ourselves and they were pretty aggressive. Anyway, on one, we had our Air Priorities Board at army headquarters which was in the King David Hotel and one day I was being driven up there to an Air Priorities Board meeting and there was a loud bang and big piles of smoke went up and my driver said, ‘I think we’ll turn back sir.’ I said, ‘Yes, I think we will.’ And of course it was the King David Hotel that was bombed, sent up and a lot of army people were killed, and civilian people. Great tragedy actually because so I understand and read that the Jewish guys that did it they stuck bombs in milk churns and they actually ‘phoned and told them that there was bombs there but they said ha ha you know, took no notice of it. Very bad. Anyway, after a while I angled for a posting to Kenya. My brother was there. What had happened to him was he had joined the war, joined the RAF before the war and he was a fitter 2E. He’d been to St Athan’s and he, early in the war he was posted to the Far East. The ship was torpedoed off Mombasa and he got ashore and he was sent to Eastleigh there and he stayed there throughout the war. He married there, English girl there and so he was there and after the war he joined an aircraft company. East African Airways I think but he was a, he became a senior engineer, became chief engineer of a Safari Airways eventually. So I angled for a posting there and I got it. They called me SMSO Senior Movement Staff Officer. I knew nothing about, I knew about air movements, I knew nothing about road and rail. I signed an awful lot of documents [laughs] but I, you know, had no training for it at all. It was, it was a very nice posting. A very easy posting. Originally we were billeted out in hotels but there was a housing shortage there and all that sort of thing and they thought as an example we ought to have an officer’s mess so an older hotel we took over we used it as headquarters and we had an officer’s mess set up and I can remember we had a very easy going AOC who was a non-flyer. Actually a peacetime guy but a nice guy, very easy going and he never seemed, never seemed to send for you in his office, he came to see you and one day he came to my office and he said, ‘Woolgar I’ve a job for you.’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘I’m going to make you the mess secretary.’ I thought, ‘Well yes sir but you see I do have to go to Cairo once a month for conferences, air conferences and I also have to visit stations around, you know, Aden, Eritrea and places like that periodically. I am away from base quite a bit.’ ‘Oh, oh alright, I’ll think about it.’ So comes back the next day and he said, ‘Jerry Dawkins is mad with you, Woolgar.’ I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘Cause I’ve made him the secretary of the mess,’ you see, ‘But I’m going to make you the PMC.’ So I was the president of the mess committee and I knew nothing. I really didn’t know anything, you know. There was much older people than me, senior to me to do it but anyway they all dodged it and I couldn’t dodge it the truth was but it was interesting because it was in the days they did a lot of entertaining and this AOC he entertained the army guy, the naval guy and on occasion the Aga Khan. I met, I met a lot of people. I don’t know whether I should put this on the tape but Mrs AOC was a pain in the head.
DE: Right.
RJW: The flowers were never right, or she sat in a draught, or the meat was tough, ‘Flight lieutenant I didn’t like –’ [laughs].
DE: Oh dear. Oh dear.
RJW: But you know, you know I was only in my, I was in my twenties, middle twenties and I always thought it was good because it taught me a lot. It gave me experience which I never would have had otherwise. Anyway, eventually I went to Ein Shemer I thought I’d like to do a bit more flying. I went up to Ein Shemer in Palestine to join number 38 Squadron. I was the gunnery leader come armament officer, come radar oh everything. Everybody was leaving and they said, ‘You can do this.’ ‘You can do that.’ And a bit of a mixture I think but the main role of the squadron was finding illegal immigrant ships. Illegal ships were probably like what’s happening now but these ships were coming with Jewish people from the Balkans you know and from the middle of Europe and they were coming in to land in Palestine because the intake was on quotas and the idea was that 38 Squadron should locate them by radar on patrols and then get the navy to intercept them and when we did find them the navy used to miss them and they landed and the army picked them up. They put them in detention centres, that sort of thing, for a while but that is, that is what we were doing and I was there until about August, August 1947 and then I came home. Do you want to hear what happened to me after that?
DE: Yes, please, yeah, yeah.
RJW: Well I came back to the Hove Corporation. They’d promoted me to become the assistant valuation officer. I wasn’t qualified. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year. God. [laughs] Salary. And I realised I had to become qualified quickly. There were two exams. The Chartered, Chartered Auctioneers and Estates Agent’s Institute and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, so I got my head down and fortunately both organisations and others I believe, they introduced special war service conditions. I was able to take the direct final which was good. It was a three year course but I did it in eighteen months. Ah yes. I put my family, my wife, my daughter through hell because we didn’t do, I didn’t go out, I didn’t do anything. I just studied because I realised that I wouldn’t get anywhere unless I did and having passed and become a chartered surveyor I marched off the council and said ah you know and they said, ‘Ah well yes, we don’t think you’ll be any more service to us as a chartered surveyor than you were before Mr Woolgar.’ Twenty five pounds a year increase in your salary and we’ll give you a grant of twenty five pounds towards the cost of your studies. Well that prompted me to search for another job and I was very fortunate. I went to, I secured the job of the senior, a senior valuer in the city planning department of the City of London. So from knocking the hell out of Germany I came back to rebuilding the fire bombed city which was very, very interesting. It was a fantastic job in actual fact. I dealt with Barbican, St Paul’s area, all the war damaged areas. I was fourteen years there. I — I eventually I was deputy and the boss left and I got his job. For five years I was the planning valuer of the city and it was really good but that’s a whole book.
DE: Yeah, I can imagine.
RJW: About what happened. Various things, lots of public enquiries, you had some very famous people of course and QC’s and things like that and we had a New Zealander who was the city planning officer called Meland[?] and he was a very informal guy. Not a bit like the city fathers were and his famous words were, he was under cross examination by a QC at a public enquiry and he was asked why it was necessary to compulsorily acquire a group of buildings to put a road through and he said, ‘Well you see the bombs didn’t always drop in the right places.’ [laughs] You know. Anyway, after, after fourteen years I was poached by a firm by the name of St Quintin Son and Stanley to become a partner there and to be responsible for all their planning work and that was very good, very interesting because I, having negotiated with the partners as the valuer for the city I was now negotiating with my deputy who had come up on the opposite side. He often said, ‘Yeah but Jimmy you said, so and so'. I said 'Oh well yeah' [laughs]. But that was, I’ve had a very, very interesting life really. The city was full of tradition. Full of everything. That’s a whole book really. Having dealt with Barbican, the redevelopment of Barbican, the city —
DE: Yes.
RJW: I was now dealing on behalf of developers for developing other parts of the city. The idea, the main idea the city leased most of its land out on ninety nine year building leases by tender. So the developers all had to make a tender, ground rent condition and the design of the building and that sort of thing. That’s really the way it worked and from time to time there were planning enquiries and I was instructed sometimes by clients as a valuer, as a planning valuer to deal with various appeals for land, on land that they wanted to develop which the city didn’t want them to and or they were local protests and got myself in the witness box and highly cross examined by very clever QCs but also roamed around the country because we had a lot of clients in the city that were elsewhere in the country. We acted for the Bank of England, we acted for the Stock Exchange and the, and quite a number of the banks, Midland Bank and Lloyds, people like that and so it was, it was all done at a high level. It’s kind of amusing some of the things that I was asked to do which I knew nothing about [laughs] and I always remember a firm Denis firm [?], they were in the sand and gravel business they always wanted to extract sand and gravel from the best agricultural land by rivers you see and there was always objection to it. Anyway, I fought one or two appeals for them quite successfully, fortunately, and one day the chairman asked me to value their mineral reserves and so, ‘I can’t do that, I’m not the minerals man. I know nothing about it.’ ‘Oh that doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I just want, I just want you to value it for me.’ I said, ‘Well I don’t know how to value it.’ ‘You’ll find a way.’ I particularly wanted to do it and I got the impression that we might lose them as a client if you know, if it didn’t [?]. My junior partner and I we put our heads together and somehow or other we found a way and he said, ‘Ah, it doesn’t matter. Nobody else will challenge it because they don’t know the way either.’ [laughs] Anyway, we, what did we do? Well leisurely [?] we, during that time the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors celebrated its hundredth year. I had a bit of a role in that as chairman of one of the committees that dealt with it which was very interesting. Oh yes. I was, I was picked up by a building society and became a non-executive director. It was called The Planet, and over the years, I joined them about 1963 I suppose, as soon as I became a partner of St Quentin and over the years we merged with the Magnet Building Society, that’s right and then we took over a midland society that had called itself the Town and Country Building Society so we then adopted that name and eventually, for the last three years I became chairman of that. I had the most interesting time because we had overseas conferences. Notably one in Washington which was extremely good and oh and Cannes. They really looked after themselves these that was the international thing you see.
DE: Wonderful.
RJW: Very nice, very pleasant and during all this period we had various dinners in the Mansion House, dinners in the Guildhall and in 1971 St Quentin firm celebrated it’s sesquicentennial which is their hundred and fiftieth year.
DE: Thank you for telling me.
RJW: Yes. Right. So by that time we were three joint level senior partners right and we split up the duties of what we were going to do. We had a year. I got the job of having the dinner in the Guildhall. I was manager, because the city surveyor was a friend of mine he managed to get us, we were the first outside body to have a dinner in the Guildhall and we had it and got the governor of the Bank of England as a principal guest, Lord Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, Lady Donaldson his wife who was to become, he was the sheriff at the time and it was a pretty high ranking do. It was very good but I’m telling you the story because it’s kind of amusing. We had a chap in the firm who looked after all those sort of things you know. He was very good. He got the nuts and bolts done for us. So I said to him, ‘I think you’d better go tell the police up at John Street Police Station that we’ve got some VIPs coming to the Guildhall on this particular date because they might want to take some precautions. So he takes the guest list up, goes up to John Street. He sees a cockney desk sergeant and this desk sergeant looks at this list and he says, I’ve forgotten his name now, the governor of the Bank of England, ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Master of the Rolls. ‘Oh no he don’t rate.’ Lord something, I don’t know and he went down and at the bottom it had Her Majesty’s Band of the Royal Irish Guard. ‘Oh my Gawd,’ he said, ‘George, got the Irish Guards coming. Full emergency.’ And because the Irish guards, it was at the times of the troubles and because the Irish Guards were coming they had all sorts of precautions. These chaps had to come in individually in civvies and all that sort of thing you know, by themselves and yeah. I thought that was rather amusing.
DE: Crikey.
RJW: Anyway, I retired in 1971, no 1973 that’s right. 1993 at the age of seventy three, got it right. We spent a lot of time cruising. We like cruising. We went on quite a few cruises. We got, we had a place in Majorca, an apartment there. A little place on the coast which was very nice. We spent quite a bit of time out there. That’s really it. Just got older. A bit more infirm, you know. The wheels don’t grind as well as they used to. I hope I haven’t bored you.
DE: No. It’s been absolutely wonderful. There’s —
RJW: I haven’t given you an opportunity to ask any questions.
DE: Well, I’ve as you’ve seen, I’ve jotted some questions down. I mean, again they’re quite, quite broad questions. What, what was it like flying in a Hampden?
RJW: Well you see, strangely enough there was no comparison was there because I’d flown in an Anson which was alright but the next type aircraft you flew in was a Hampden so it was, it was alright. Probably thought all flying was like that but for the wireless operator, rear gunner it was a bit dicey I think. People don’t really know this, you have a wireless set in front of you and what they called a scarff ring with twin VGO guns with pans of ammunition on them, right and a cupola which closes down over the top of it over the guns but in order to operate the guns the cupola has to be back which means when you’re over the other side you’re in the open air and you were standing up to be vigilant. Well I mean you couldn’t see sitting down. You wanted a turret standing up and eventually you have an electric motor on it but originally there wasn’t. It was [unclear]. There was a heating pipe came off the starboard engine I think, exhaust or something. Unfortunately it used to burn the living daylights out of you down on the ground and it was ice cold when you got up top [laughs] but you know. So it wasn’t that comfortable and the other position, the rear gunner was in a belly thing. A blister underneath and that was very, very difficult. You were hunched up, you know, you would get cramp in it. It wasn’t very nice but you know other than that it was alright although I must admit that when I mention to people, RAF guys, I was in a Hampden they say, ‘You were in a Hampden?’ They say, ‘You flew in Hampdens and you’re still alive.’ [laughs] No, no, no. They weren’t, they weren’t that bad really. I think our pilot like any, Ralph, he was quite happy with it. I don’t know whether the navigator was. Sorry.
DE: No. No. That’s, that’s wonderful. So what was, what was your favourite aircraft to fly in?
RJW: Sorry.
DE: What was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The —
DE: What aircraft was your favourite to fly in?
RJW: The other aircraft.
DE: Yeah. What other aircraft?
RJW: Oh well I flew in Halifax 3s. Wellingtons. I think I flew in a Mosquito once or twice. Ansons. Passenger in a Tiger Moth. That sort of thing, you know. Oh and Lancaster, Manchester. Manchester and Lancaster yes but I didn’t do any ops in a Manchester or Lancaster. The Manchester was the forerunner as, you know about that. Yes. Yes. We had them on, they were introduced on 49 Squadron in about, I think about September 1942, something like that. One of the early ones and then fairly quickly replaced by the Lancasters. Oh the Lancaster were marvellous. I flew in the Lancasters of course in Ein Shemer. They were Lancasters. Yeah.
DE: I see, right, yeah.
RJW: They were good. We had, at Ein Shemer I’ve got to tell you one of the duties there was to provide an airborne lifeboat at Malta so we had a little jolly there for three weeks and so. A couple of aircraft with airborne lifeboats stationed at Valetta. You were on twenty four hours standby. Then twenty four hours down the pub [laughs] that was quite good and we did one, we did one exercise, the exercise was that we were taken out by the navy, cast adrift in a dinghy and the other crew had to home on it and drop the airborne lifeboat and the crew in the dinghy had to get in to it and sail it back in to Valetta harbour. We were the crew in the dinghy. We got told off for eating all the rations [laughs], but you know it was fun. It was quite good. Malta was nice too in those days. Post war you see.
DE: What was –?
RJW: Oh and Cyprus. That was another place we had to go to. We went to Cyprus. Yes. Sorry.
DE: What was, what was it like, what was the difference between being a sergeant and becoming an officer?
RJW: Oh well. It was quite good. It was more comfortable. The sergeant’s mess was very good. The food was always good. I never grumbled about the food. I think the air crew seemed to get additional rations or something. It all went in altogether but somebody once told me you get more dairy products because as air crew or something like that. I don’t know. But being an officer obviously was more comfortable. You didn’t have to make your bed [laughs]. You had a batwoman, batman or batwoman. You know a WAAF who did it for you. Cleaned your shoes that sort of thing. The chores. You had more chores done for you I found, but yes it was it was comfortable. Flying. Right. Oh I forgot to tell you an incident which is recorded in David Donaldson’s obituary. We were flying on patrols to locate the launching pads of the V2. In fact, we saw, I was with David Donaldson, we saw the first one go up and we got a fix on it and that is quite interesting because we told the special operator and he got his head down and we tried to get a lot of information out of him when we got back as to what he found. We got nothing out of him of course but of course what we did eventually find out and this is public knowledge now it wasn’t radar controlled. It was clockwork controlled but Churchill insisted that the patrols continued so even after they found out we were still going up and down on the line and on one occasion, daylight. It was on daylight a couple of, I don’t know what they were, I can’t remember, mix them up, I can’t remember what the aircraft were. A couple of German fighters. I can’t remember what they were now, a couple of German fighters came up, come up and we were just about to take evasive action when they tucked them in, they tucked themselves in the wing and the pilot went like that.
DE: Waved at you.
RJW: Waved at David. David. You know. Like that. Like that and then they peeled away and off they went. This was over Holland and they were quite friendly. This would have been, oh I don’t know, probably March, April something like that 1945. And do you know I remember that so well for years and years and years and I wonder sometimes did that really happen or did I dream it? And then in David Donaldson’s obituary it was mentioned and I thought goodness that is true, it did really happen. I meant, I should have told you before.
DE: No. That’s, that’s wonderful. What was, what was David like?
RJW: Yeah. Actually of course they’d, if they’d, if they’d have split up you know they would have, they would have had us you know, in fact.
DE: Sure.
RJW: Yeah. Yeah.
DE: What was David like?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: What was David Donaldson like?
RJW: Oh lovely. He was a hell of a nice guy. Easy going. He was a good CO. Firm, right. Never panicked. He was a solicitor by profession and he was very calm. We did the first FIDO landing at Foulsham. We went to Gardenia [?] and did our stuff there and incidentally on the way back, was it Balcom [?] Island, the Swedish island on the Baltic, fired various tracer bullets up in a V sign [laughs]. Nobody went near of course. Anyway, when we got back it was fog and David said, ‘Well we’ve got an option of landing on FIDO or being diverted.’ He said, you know, he said, ‘What do you want to do chaps? Do you want me to land or go somewhere else for your eggs and bacon.’ ‘Oh no David,’ you know and he did a perfect landing. Real, you know. The risk of FIDO was that you veered off it but, perfect. Yeah. He was like that. He said, ‘What do you want to do?’ [laughs]
DE: Wonderful. Yeah. So when you saw these two fighters —
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Were you mid-upper upper or were you the rear gunner?
RJW: Sorry?
DE: Were you mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner? When you saw the two fighters.
RJW: Yes.
DE: Were you the mid-upper gunner or the rear gunner?
RJW: I was in the mid upper.
DE: Ah huh.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Was that your –?
RJW: I was, yeah because I, the mid upper was the controller, in other words we used to take evasive action. If you were in daylight you take evasive action and once you had come back you’d take control. You would tell him corkscrew right, corkscrew left because the pilot can’t see.
DE: No.
RJW: They can’t see. They come in on a curve of pursuit like that and you’d corkscrew in, down and roll and up the other way you see, but if they split up either side you’d had it.
DE: Yeah. Did you did you ever fire your guns in anger?
RJW: Hmmn?
DE: Did you ever shoot at a fighter?
RJW: Ever see a fighter?
DE: No. Did you ever shoot at one?
RJW: Oh yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: At night time. Well I hoped it was a fighter [laughs]. No. Once or twice you know you saw the thing come out of, but never, I never had a sustained fight. Never had something come in two or three times but I can’t remember. Not on the Halifax. Never had anything on the Halifax or the Hampden. Fired the guns several times on the Hampden but I can’t remember exactly when they were. Sorry about that.
DE: That’s quite alright. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, which did you like better the night ops or daylight ops?
RJW: Oh we didn’t do much daylight. We did very little daylight. We did some mining in daylight but it was nearly all night ops. We always thought daylight was a bit scary but [laughs] but no I suppose the scariness really was in the middle of the flak. Then you really, in a Hampden you could hear it, you could smell it and you could see it. Puffs of puffs you know if you got there. If you were — Essen and Hamburg they were, they were the places that you got, and of course Berlin but I only, I only did one trip to Berlin. My first one. But that wasn’t very good because it was covered in cloud anyway. If you, when you, when we went to France, if we were bombing France if you couldn’t see the target, initially anyway, you had to bring your bombs back and that’s recorded quite a bit.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: By the way have you got “The Hampden File?”
DE: Yes.
RJW: Harry Moyle?
DE: No. Yes. We’ve got a copy of that.
RJW: That’s very good. Have you got, “Beware of the Dog”?
DE: I don’t know about that one.
RJW: 49 Squadron history. The whole history of 49 Squadron written by John Ward and Ted Catchart. It was actually published by Ted Catchart. If you get in touch with Alan Parr, you know Alan. He’ll tell you where and how you can get a copy of it. You should really have a copy of that.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Because that details everything.
DE: Yeah. Wonderful. I will do. Thank you.
RJW: Yes. It’s called, that’s our crest you see.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Cave Canem.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: So —
DE: Yeah. I’ll make sure we get a copy for the library.
RJW: Yeah.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Yeah. And the “Bomber Command Diaries.” You’ve got those.
DE: Got those. Yeah.
RJW: Yeah. I’ve got all those.
DE: They’re worth, worth a bit as well, they are as well. How how did you cope with flying nights?
RJW: How did I cope?
DE: Yeah. Flying nights. What —?
RJW: How?
DE: Flying operations at night how, how —
RJW: Finding them?
DE: Yeah. How did you, how did you cope, you know with interrupted sleep patterns and —?
RJW: I’m not quite with you sorry.
DE: No. Flying operations at night —
RJW: At night time.
DE: Yeah. Your sleep was interrupted.
RJW: Oh sleep.
DE: Yeah how, how did you, how did you —?
RJW: Oh well yes you went to briefing in the morning if ops were on. No not briefing. You’d do a bit of exercise and that. Go to the flight and then you’d have an early briefing and then you’d have a rest, have your eggs and bacon and then night time you kept awake. There were tablets they used to give you to keep awake. I can’t remember the name of them now but they didn’t do much good I don't think. And then of course after de-briefing when you came back, eggs and bacon and you had a long sleep. Sometimes you were on the next night but not very often that happened. Not in my day. It did later on of course.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: It did later on.
DE: Did you, did you take tablets to keep you awake?
RJW: Yes.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can’t remember the names now.
DE: Wakey wakey tablets.
RJW: Yeah. I can’t remember what they were. Caffeine. Yeah I think it was —
DE: Yeah.
RJW: Something like that. You could, if you wanted them you could have them but I can’t remember the name of them.
DE: Was it, was it Benzedrine?
RJW: Yeah. Yeah but I never found. You were wound up. Let’s put it, let’s be honest about it. Everybody was. You were apprehensive.
DE: Yes.
RJW: Ok. You knew the target. You kitted up. You went out. You were taken out to the aircraft and you fiddled around with all your gear. You had to make sure everything was ok and eventually you took off. Sometimes you often, sometimes you took off in twilight so you could see the setting sun as it were, you know. See Lincoln Cathedral. And because you were in the rear you were looking west you were seeing some of the light and ok you got a bit of jitters maybe you know. A bit. Apprehension more than anything else but you had to be very alert. Very alert. You had to be watching all the time and you reported back anything you see. Getting over the target, doing the bombing run. That was a bit of a wait you know. Flying steady, straight and steady and hearing the navigator or the bomb aimer going to the skipper. Everybody else was quiet. You could see the activity going on but if there was cloud below or the flashes coming up and everything else. If you were near flak as I said you could smell it and see it and all that sort of thing. Got away from the target. There was always a sense of relief once you come away from the target but of course it was just as dangerous coming away. You couldn’t — you couldn't relax or you shouldn’t relax, let’s put it that way. Probably that’s what did happen. You just had to be on your toes all the time but on the way back over the sea, over the North Sea coming back you were a bit relaxed then. Coming in to land of course you had to be very careful. You could have intruders, you know. You really, you couldn’t sit down. You couldn’t take a rest. And you know there were times and I’m sure others have told you this, you had a very dicey trip and you say, ‘If I get back I’m not going to come again.’ [laughs] Why come back? If I get out of this one that’s it, but you did, you know. You didn’t, you didn’t think much about, you didn’t think too much about it on the ground. At least I didn’t. You didn’t dwell about it. You didn’t think. You got wound up for ops. Then they were scrubbed so you were off to the pub you know it’s not oh, everything goes and you just, you just tended to live for that night, that night. You were in the pub with your pals drinking away and you didn’t give many thoughts to the fact that you would be doing the same thing tomorrow. At least I didn’t and I don’t think many other people did either. Some might have, but I didn’t. You just treated each day as it came along. You got scared, of course you got scared you know, got scared out of your life when you were in the dinghy but you thought, oh well, you know, something will happen. I’ll get out of it. Eventually you did. I don’t know but the greatest thing [?] was though, to be honest was to see your pals go although because in the main you didn’t know whether they were killed or not. They didn’t return. They were missing. Right. Failed to return. And there was always the hope that they’d be prisoners of war or they’d landed somewhere else but it, it didn’t sink in. It wasn’t like that, being in the army and seeing the person next to you killed. That didn’t happen unless your own aircraft, you could see an aircraft gosh I can’t remember the number of lucky breaks I had. Yes. On the, on 49 Squadron when I first joined Allsenbrook I was a bit concerned and this is not against the guy at all but it is recorded somewhere this happened. He came to the squadron. He had flown into a balloon barrage under training and he was the only one that got out. On the first trip with him he was very keen, they’d made him the photographic, he wasn’t the, he wasn’t the station fellow, he was some sort of, something to do with photography and he wanted to hold the aircraft straight and level over the target to take the photographs [laughs]. So you know that was my first trip or second trip, I can’t remember which and I got a bit, a bit concerned about it and there was a sergeant pilot, or flight sergeant pilot that I’d been drinking with or knew quite well and he wanted a rear gunner and I thought, he wanted a WOP/AG, I thought. Well ok I’ll go and see if I can get switched into his crew and I went to see Domestra [?] who was our flight commander, Squadron Leader Domestra and he he said, ‘Oh no, I’ve done the crew schedules for the night,’ he said, ‘Come and see me tomorrow.’ His name was Walker this chap. He took off behind us. Engine cut. Went straight in. The bombs went up. Killed them all. I thought, I didn’t know it was him at the time. I saw it. When I got back we said, ‘Who was it that went, that went in?’ It was him. I thought oh my God, you know. Strange isn’t it? I must have somehow had a lucky penny. Oh yes and you will have heard this story and Eric will have told you. Others will. We had, the CO was called Stubbs. Wing Commander Stubbs. One day after briefing for ops, we were going on ops. ‘All the NCO’s will remain behind,’ remain behind. We got a real right rollicking about our form of dress, not wearing regulation boots or shoes. All sorts of things you know. Slovenly behaviour. Then he said, famous words, ‘Just remember the only reason you’ve got three stripes on your arm is to save you from the salt mines in case you are taken prisoner of war.’ Have you heard that? Oh yes. Yes. Yes. He said that. He said that and he got the name of Salt Mine Sam. Sam Stubbs. That is recorded somewhere but Eric Cook he was with me. I was on the squadron when Eric Cook was there you see and but he famously used to quote that quite often actually but yeah and it’s quite well known. There was a guy that was, I don’t know what his name was now but he was, he was an honourable bloke, honourable, he was a sergeant pilot and he was a bloke, he was an odd bloke, he refused to take a commission. I can’t remember his name but he was some sort of landed gentry of some sort and he was able to talk in high places as you did and we got a very meagre, half-hearted well it wasn’t an apology it was some sort of, you know it wasn’t really meant sort of thing you know. Sorry about that.
DE: No. That’s wonderful. I’m going to, I think I’m going to draw the interview to a close because you’ve been talking for nearly two hours.
RJW: Oh gosh. Have I?
DE: Yeah. That’s —
RJW: Have I really?
DE: Yes. Yeah.
RJW: I’m sorry.
DE: No, it’s –
RJW: I’ve probably bored you stiff.
DE: No. It’s absolutely marvellous and I’ve said nothing on the tape so it’s fantastic.
RJW: Eh?
DE: I’ve not spoken at all. It’s all been you so —
RJW: Do you, it’s funny everything else is going but that memory.
DE: It certainly is. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Yeah. Well I’m going to –
RJW: And while I’ve been talking to you Dan I’ve been living it visually.
DE: I could tell. Yeah.
RJW: I can see it.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: I can see the incidents right there.
DE: Yeah.
RJW: As you know.
DE: It’s been an absolute pleasure.
RJW: I didn’t realise, I didn’t realise it was —
DE: Two hours look. So I shall, I shall press pause and stop it. Thank you very, very much. That’s absolutely wonderful.Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Reg WoolgarDescriptionAn account of the resourceReg Woolgar was born in Hove. He volunteered for the Royal Air Force in December 1939 and trained as a wireless operator/air gunner. He flew Hampdens with 49 Squadron. His aircraft was damaged by anti-aircraft fire on a mine laying operation to Oslo Fjord, including a bullet that passed through his gun sight. He recounts ditching a Hampden in the English Channel and being picked up by the Royal Navy off the Isle of Wight. He describes evenings out in Lincoln at the Saracen’s Head. After his first tour he was commissioned and became gunnery leader with 192 Squadron in 100 Group. Reg Woolgar was posted overseas in 1945 and recounts a bomb exploding near the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem. He also recounts tales of his time in Kenya and provides details of his career outside the Royal Air Force, as a planner and valuer for the city of London. He retired in 1971.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceDan EllinPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-14ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsFormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource02:00:47 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAWoolgarRLA160614CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Atlantic Ocean--English ChannelGreat BritainEngland--LincolnshireEngland--WiltshireGermany--Ruhr RegionEngland--LincolnEngland--NorfolkEngland--OxfordshireGermany--BerlinGermany--EssenGermany--MannheimMiddle East--JerusalemMiddle East--PalestineGermanyGermany--Kiel CanalTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1941-09-011942RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.100 Group192 Squadron49 Squadron617 Squadron83 SquadronaircrewAnsonanti-aircraft fireentertainmentGneisenauHampdenkilled in actionmissing in actionoperational training unitRAF FoulshamRAF ScamptonRAF Upper HeyfordRAF YatesburyScharnhorsttrainingWalrusWellingtonwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1566/PColeC1601.1.jpg1bf8921fe4149a2ba534e67eb3ce33dbhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/147/1566/AColeC150727.2.mp3dc94a957b0efc83699d429a24c84684dDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceCole, ColinC ColeColin ColeDescriptionAn account of the resource30 items. The collection relates to Warrant Officer Colin Cole (1924 – 2015 RAF Volunteer Reserve 1605385) who served with 617 Squadron. The collection contains an oral history interview, logbook, service documents, medals, memorabilia from the Tirpitz and six photographs. RightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Six items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties or to comply with intellectual property regulations. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-01-272015-07-27IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextCole, CTranscribed audio recordingA resource consisting primarily of recorded human voice.TranscriptionText transcribed from audio recording or documentNM: This is Nigel Moore interviewing Colin Cole on the 27th of July. So, we’re at Colin’s address in, in -
Other: Willan House in Stainfield.
NM: Thank you very much. And Colin’s starting to look through a box of his, his photographs and other, other documents.
CC: Yes I’m just trying, I remember, I remember showing these you know
Other: ‘Cause there’s all sorts of
CC: Probably one of the oldest ones at Willan (?) and, yes.
Other: Take it out of the box Colin.
CC: Sorry?
Other: We’ll take out of this box the ones that are pertaining to the Lancaster like that one which is obviously a picture of you with it. Ok?
NM: So what we’ll do, in the end is I’ll inform the people at the Bomber Command Centre that all this documentation is available and if they want to scan it
Other: Yeah.
NM: They will contact Colin separately.
Other: Right.
NM: And they’ll be informed and we’ll get them to contact Colin directly.
Inaudible
NM: Is Colin’s logbook in there?
Other: No it’s in the safe.
NM: OK. It’s a very valuable document.
Other: That’s you with some twins. You carry on and I’ll have a quick look through and grab the ones
NM: Well no it’s going to make a noise and it’ll catch on the
Other: Oh right
NM: We need to sort of try and catch pure form of Colin’s voice. So what I suggest is that we conduct the interview.
Other: Do you want me to look through this at a separate time then?
NM: Yeah I think so.
Other: I think
NM: That might be better yes. I would, sort of trying to do it at random right now. ‘Cause what we’re trying to get is, is mostly Colin’s voice.
Other: Right.
NM: These, these recordings I know are very sensitive. We practice with them and you can pick up.
Other: In that case Colin we’ll go through these later on.
CC: Oh righto, yes. Ok.
Other: And I shall disappear.
NM: I wouldn’t mind looking at Colin’s logbook later if that’s alright.
Other: Right.
NM: But we’ll
Other: And we’ve got his medals and things like that as well.
NM: Yes I’d like to look at those as well, absolutely. I appreciate your help.
Other: I’ll leave that lot down there.
CC: Yeah ok.
NM: Right, so you’ve had lunch haven’t you Colin? Everything’s
Other: Yeah.
NM: Ready to
Other: Just waiting for the beach party this afternoon.
NM: Alright, thanks very much for your help.
Other: See you later. Call If you want anything, just press the yellow button.
NM: Ok. Oh right, fine, brilliant. Thank you very much indeed.
So, hello again Colin and thank you for seeing me again. Can you hear me all right?
CC: Just yeah.
NM: Ok I’ll speak up. What I’d, what I’d like to do
CC: Yes that’s better
NM: You’re ok with that? What I’d like to do Colin is, is ask you a series of very simple questions and you can just talk to me about your life, your experiences and just, just as, as you remember it. Is that alright? Are you happy to do that?
CC: Yes, if I can go back far enough [laughs].
NM: Well if you can brilliant. Ok, well, we’ll just, as it comes alright.
CC: Yes.
NM: So, so tell me a bit about your very early life up to the age of eighteen.
CC: Ahum.
NM: So what about your upbringing and childhood?
CC: Right. Let’s think now. What’s
[Pause]
CC: My upbringing and childhood as a, sort of, very young days, from what I can remember, this is going back, getting a bit old now isn’t it? It’s, yes what can I, what I can remember of it is that my father worked for WH Smith and Sons and which meant that we were, we were all up and running and the irons going and everything else. He had a pretty good job so it was that year and subsequent years, I mean we weren’t rich but I was quite well off you know. We had a comfortable childhood. And when I say an early life I mean, it’s life. We had breakfast at about seven o’clock in the morning you know because of his work, you know. He used to go and we had contacts with the railway which I suppose would be the, the most sort of idea of the, of my childhood you know.
So I had an interest in railways and all that sort of thing going, going to that. And childhood in those days, which in those days, was you know I had a good childhood. Sort of well brought up and, you know, tried to bring you up one thing and another and from that point of view, you know, it was a long time ago you see because I’m now what past my 101th birthday which, and you’re talking about an awful long time ago and the sort memories that, you know that, I did have memories of early train life ‘cause we went around various stations where he was manager and all that sort of thing and I wasn’t concerned with newspapers they were dull and mystery things. So, and had a jolly good time sort of looking at railways how they were formed and you know what they provided and all that sort of thing. I suppose that really was the early, it was not particularly connected with the RAF at all you know, sort of that was something which came along later I suppose you could say
NM: What about school days?
CC: Sorry
NM: What about school days? Your schooling?
CC: Schooling. I, I was at Twickenham. My dad was so, ‘cause I was as well cause we moved around various counties you know sort of and places and that but, yeah Twickenham was school time. Yes it was. I was more or less brought up in Twickenham so yeah it was just an ordinary sort of classroom membership at the time I suppose. Can’t think of anything else that I thought that was different from anybody else’s you know, sort of, learn the sort of tables and all that sort of thing, generally worked our way through to the various classrooms you know and that sort of thing and that was it you know.
NM: What age were you when you left school and what did you do straight after school?
CC: I, I, ages, age when I left school was a customary age was at fourteen, no fifteen. There was always
[background noises].
CC: [unclear]
NM: So Colin you were saying about leaving school at fifteen?
CC: [unclear] Fifteen [laughs]
NM: So what did you do after you left school?
CC: Yes and generally speaking at that time of the year you know, that time of my career such as it was you know sort of just had to take what everybody else took, you know, sort of. Oh dear, what can I say. Just, just really the usual customary schooling, you know. Sang the class tune in every class whatever it was, fourteen, fifteen, you know, so and, nothing very out of the ordinary.
NM: But after school when you left school, Colin, after, after you left aged fifteen what did you do?
CC: Well funnily for a short time I, one of the managers at WH Smith’s from London you know he persuaded Dad to enlist me in WH Smith and Sons so I had a job straightaway, you know. There was no question about that you know. I was always keen to get it right and keen for, to do the job right, you know, sort of thing and which made it easy going if you know what I mean, yeah. It was [unclear]. Now, when, I was trying to think when war started. 1940 was it?
[pause]
I can’t remember. Can you? [laugh]
NM: So tell me how you
CC: It’s a bit of a mix up you know, sort of. I don’t think anybody’s ever asked me that question before, any questions before and I’m afraid my memory’s not as good as it might be if you know what I mean. Sort of summarise and general sort of glance of it you know. Nobody’s really asked me anything about it you know.
NM: So tell me how you came to join the RAF?
CC: Ahh now of course aero, aeroplanes were new and, you know, exciting and all the rest of it, you know and yes I wanted to join the RAF and, and my father said well he wouldn’t stop me you know so, so really, I was trying to think now what I know I was, let me get this right when I was
[pause]
I was eighteen I think when I first joined or put in to join the RAF. Went for examination and one thing and another, both physical and, sort of, more physical than anything else I suppose you know sort of to see if I was fit you know. I had a two day sort of what’s the name to sort of make sure I was ok you know and one thing and another and yes got the ok and that was it. Oh what did the, what, dear oh dear [laughs] funny isn’t it when you go to go back you know.
[pause]
All I can really say I suppose was there was, there was always a job available you know, sort of thing which was what my parents wanted to make sure that I’d got, you know, you have pay from a very early age you know a few pence a week sort of keep going and one thing and another like that and I was just quite happy about it and just feet up you know and there wasn’t much else I can say outstanding.
NM: So when you, when you joined the RAF how did you go into the wireless operator/air gunner route as opposed to any of the other routes. Tell me a little about that.
CC: That, the wireless operator/air gun, well not the air gunner bit because that fell in to the, I was keener at doing the wireless bit. If you went in for a wireless operator you always had - there was always wireless operator stroke air gunner, because if you look at the setup of the crew, and one thing and another the wireless operator was farther back as, as any of the crew but from the pilot and that would be, and they, it was the wireless operator that took over from the air gunner if he was shot down or shot at that sort of thing. So it was really the wireless operator that I was, I was keen on.
The reason of going in for that I suppose really would be that I thought if it was sort of idealistic move you know that if you could do Morse, Morse code and one thing and another and oh and in the first place I joined the, what was the
[pause]
What oh dear trying to think of the word now, joined as a - you know - oh a cadet. You sort of, you had a peacetime job and you had a part in the RAF, you know, that you could take part in, you know, which gave you a better chance of getting into the RAF that you wouldn’t normally have got, you know. And we had a chappie that was he, he was retired then and he took tuition over to cadets you know and was talking and teaching them and that sort of thing and he was a master well mastermind in - what’s the name - you know, sort of, what’s the name of, what’s the name, Morse code you know and the thing I can remember mostly was that I sat in that, sat in that hearing him doing Morse code you know and he was trying to see, to sort of teach people Morse and that sort of thing and I can always think oh I can do that you know. I don’t know why but anyway I thought I could do and it turned out that I could, you know. I easily learned Morse code and one thing and another and I was keen you know on doing that sort of thing. And naturally when I was what eighteen and called up, sort of permanent RAF, went in for sort of wireless operator which I got, you know.
There was a quite lot of what shall we say you know you had quite a job to get into the RAF then. There was a lot of, all the kids used to, you know, it was always like wow sort of (cough) pardon me. You know, you was in the RAF and could fly an aircraft and all that sort of thing which was always new about that time and you know not everyday sort of stuff and, you know, you were looked at. That’s how I got in the RAF. You know, went in for examinations and all that and passed that and it was just a job you know and that’s how I got in the RAF.
NM: Tell me a little bit about the training you had to go through before you went operational. What was your training like?
CC: Well then you, then you went into training once they accepted you. You had a preliminary course which we did nothing else but you stood to attention and stood at ease and all, all the, I don’t know, the job and one thing and another. You didn’t start doing Morse code although I could do it, you know, sort of thing, since I was - the fact that I could do it made absolutely sure that you know I could get it you know but that didn’t come to the second half of the, when they started. Then they, you took the wireless set oh you know sort of a tin box thing you know, sort of thing. I’m talking now, from what I can remember, you know, sort of thing it’s, it’s long, long since this is and yeah got three, it was a three month course which I passed, passed quite easily you know and, sort of and then once you passed the ground staff they wanted me to, one thing I do remember they wanted me to stay in the RAF but the chappie that was teaching all this stuff coming through which I was at, where was I at the time, I’m trying to think. I was around the, oh – Yatesbury that was, there was a big tour at Yatesbury - would I like to stay on as, as an instructor you see, So, which, no I wouldn’t, I wanted to fly in the end, you know so I turned that down and then they sent you, the thing at Yatesbury was like a two sided thing you know if they wanted you as air crew you went along one side and if ground crew you went on the other. So I got on aircrew and just went on and trained on and on you know.
I can’t think of anything of, [pause] nothing’s, nothing sort of I could really talk about. It was all straightforward you know. Take it from there onwards, you know. The difficult things was up until then had a memory in the head you know and that was it you know sort of joining the RAF and end of story you know and got one or two bits and pieces and I tried to remember I’m sure I missed some but
NM: How far into your training did you meet your crew? At what point in your training did you meet your crew?
CC: What trying sorry.
NM: At what point did you meet up with the rest of your crew? John Leavitt and the rest of your crew?
CC: Oh right, John Leavitt and, and crew yeah. Where did we, (pause) well I guess [pause] I know they made up crews over there , now then [pause], [laughs] have a biscuit [laughs]
[pause]
CC: I’m trying to [unclear]
[pause]
CC: Yeah the thing that I do remember that was different if you like, as I say, was we formed up with a crew and John Leavitt was American. He’d been, he was older then we were you know. Two or three, four years older than what we were as normally pilots would be you know and so we - I was trying to think where we were sort of formed up as a crew.
[pause]
Do you know, I can’t really think. Nobody’s ever asked me these question before. It’s one of those things that, you know, what do you tell somebody well not what tell them what do you tell the truth yeah that’s what I want to try and do. Oh dear.
NM: Can you tell me something about the rest of your, the rest of the crew?
CC: Well the rest of the crew well yeah we, there were two gunners posted. Rear gunner and the, and the mid upper gunner they who we who have we got, we’ve got
[pause]
There was what, seven of us altogether wasn’t there? There was two gunners, myself as wireless operator we were called wireless operator/air gunner because we, we first of all had to take a sort of short flying trip you know as a sort of be able to shoot down somebody else which I never used. We never had any trouble with losing a member of the crew or anything like that you know it was quite straight, more or less straightforward, you know.
[pause]
What else can I tell you?
[Pause]
CC: You see we didn’t run into any particular trouble.
NM: So
CC: So it’s all rather
NM: So after you were crewed up you were posted to 617.
CC: 617 at
NM: Squadron
CC: Yeah. What’s the name of it? Yeah, see now where
NM: Tell me a little about life on 617 at Woodhall Spa.
CC: Err
NM: What was life like?
CC: I was at Woodhall Spa yes.
NM: So tell me about squadron life?
CC: Tell you about?
NM: What was your experience of serving with 617 squadron at Woodhall Spa? Just tell me what you remember.
CC: Well I sort of remember, you know, sort of meeting with the lads that I hadn’t met before, you know, one thing and, oh dear.
[pause]
I’m trying to think if there was something different and there wasn’t really. It was, you know, sort of quite straightforward and we got along alright together if you know what I mean. We didn’t see much of the gunners (?) until we went on ops you know and
[pause]
CC: That sort of, putting on operation, that’s when you sort of formed up at Woodhall Spa if you know what I mean, you know. Nothing, nothing outstanding you know sort of thing and
[pause]
CC: And we, we never, once we were a flying team if you like call it that you know it was, it was nothing untoward about it you know. We were sort of flying on operations, you know so.
NM: So what operations can you remember?
CC: I remember, well I was, well of course I remember Tirpitz operation of course
NM: Tell me about that.
[pause]
CC: From what I remember about the Tirpitz operation it was we, it was a very long trip on a Sunday morning that when, well we had one or two goes at that you know, sort of thing. The final one - we sort of, sort of, what can I say about it. Now once we’d flown over, dropped the bombs and away for home as quick as you can you know sort of thing [cough] but and we were just passing over the - just dropped bombs and one thing I can remember and others would remember as well that our rear gunner, he’d gone to the back of the plane you see ‘cause normally when, when we took the final run over the operating aircraft or forward of the aircraft he came towards the front you know sort of anyway he ran over the back of it and he, because it was a special op he kept an eye on the what’s the, on the operation and we, we all remember him saying that he was looking down and he says “Oh” he says, used to call him skipper, always called the pilot, “Oh skip” he said “We’ve hit the bugg, hit the” and everybody cheered [laughs] so I thank God for that sort of, you know and that was that, you know. I remember that part.
[pause]
CC: There was one other I can’t remember where it was when we went to it, we were only talking about it the other week you know, sort of, I’m trying to remember the name of the place we went to. It was in the Baltic, you know, in that area. And what was I going to say about it? Oh it took place on the, on the 13th of April and I said oh this is [laughs] oh we didn’t do anything with it because it clouded over you know, kind of thing but we went on the op you know and had a look at it and one thing and another I did remark that it was my twenty first birthday. Nothing very exciting. I thought it was for me but, you know
[pause]
There really wasn’t anything sort of very exciting about the whole thing, you know. Nobody was shot down or anything like that, you know.
[pause]
I can’t think of anything else.
NM: Was the
CC: I’d rather leave the questions to you.
NM: That’s fine. That’s what I’m here for Colin.
CC: Yes.
NM: When you served on 617 did it feel like a special squadron to you? Did it feel like a main line, main force squadron?
CC: It just felt like a main line you know sort of thing you know. Nothing you know, nothing, nothing particularly special. I mean, in all the, all the operations we took part on that were sort of special if you know what I mean, you know. We realised that, you know, so, but not really, no. 617 was, I probably couldn’t have told you then what the squadron number was if you know what I mean, you know, sort of thing but it didn’t have a particular ring about it, you know. Sort of, just, yes 617 squadron which just happened to be 617 I think, you know.
NM: The fact they trusted you with bombs like Tallboy and Grand Slam - did it feel different to any of the other squadrons?
CC: Oh what they, when they, sort of aye they did, did carry the extra bomb wasn’t it? That was right yes. Took it all in its, all in its day you know. Never thought of it as anything very special if you know what I mean. You know, just another wartime thing that had gone on if you know what I mean, you know, that sort of -nothing, nothing very special about - there was a, when I get hold of the air book there was - I mean there was a date in there that I can’t remember what it was now but nothing particularly special. No, not really ‘cause we weren’t shot down or anything like that you know. We were
[pause]
CC: No, can’t think of anything that’s
NM: What was it, what was it like as an NCO rather than an officer? ‘Cause the officers were all at the Petwood but what was it like for you as an NCO on Woodhall Spa?
CC: Well the funny part was that, that we only saw the officers on operations. There was, you know, like they were sort of, [unclear] what’s the name quartered in the quarters, you know, sort of thing and we, we were the bottom end of 617 squadron if you know what I - nobody bothered, sort of thing. All our nights out were always NCOs and all that sort of thing, you know, sort of thing. Very, only very, very seldom - I think one was at the beginning - one was at the, one of them, the war was, we went and had a few pints on the fact the war was over you know, sort of thing like that and we all went together, you know. It was the most unusual thing of the, of the lot, you know. They used to do their own thing and we used to do our own thing. We used to go into sort of various civilian places and you know sort of do them, them bits and pieces out of duty if you know what I mean, yeah. I can’t think of anything very exciting you know. I was trying to, you know, I was trying to
NM: So how about after, after the war finished and, what happened to 617 and you at that point?
CC: So we more or less, apart from when we met up to either do a practice operation or something like that did we see everybody, you know. It was just [pause] sorry. No one has ever asked me before and I can’t think of anything that was, there was nothing very exciting about it.
NM: Tell me a little about the Tiger Force.
CC: Oh the Tiger Force. Yeah well of course that was special you know. That, if there was one thing I did do funnily enough that somebody grabbed the, sort of, the photographs of that. While we were flying out to the east you know, sort of thing I had a camera, only a sort of little camera you know, sort of Browning type of thing, nothing, nothing very, I took photographs of one thing and another and they are or I hope they still are, but they were in this went in sort of talked about very much later and they were, what was I going to say. I’ve forgotten what I was going to say now. Blast. Nothing, nothing very sort of special except that was, I think I gave them to the, let’s see where were we assigned [?] where? Can’t even
[pause]
CC: I’m trying to think
[pause]
CC: No can’t think I shall have to try and think about that so
NM: Can you remember what you, can you remember where you were posted when you came back from India when the Tiger Force was deployed back to the UK. What happened after that?
CC: We ended back in the slippery slopes of Cornwall actually, you know and then formed up together, you know sort of, I’m trying to think what we did next. It’s almost a question of sort of detaching the crew altogether you know. ‘Cause I think, I say that because I think from what I can recall as it had is that I thought, you know, this would be the end of us, the old form of the 617 you know, sort of, crew if you like yeah and took some pictures of it and you know and made a little write up and that. And that, it’s hanging in if you like, sort of around somewhere or other. God know where but it was brought up, where did I give it to, one of the RAF stations you know so that should still be there. Should be a sort of, ‘cause I think they made quite a thing of it sort of photographs of where we landed and where we took off and all that sort of thing. I don’t know where it is now. It should, should be alright. Is there anything? Have you come across anything or you haven’t?
NM: I’m sure someone will know.
CC: Sorry
NM: I’m sure someone will know where that is.
CC: Well they ought to. Yes, so.
NM: Were you in, I understood you were involved in the disposal of the old upkeep Dambuster mines. Can you tell me?
CC: Oh yes
NM: Something about that?
CC: I was in a different station. I was called in to, they formed up a crew you know, to get, now what did they, oh dear. I’ve got all these things you know ticking about in my mind but when it comes down to putting them into – I can’t [cough] I can’t think of them. Yes we were sort of recalled and, you know after the coming back from India, you know, sort of thing, we were recalled and then you know disposing of the mines weren’t there, sort of. That’s one of things that we just did and end of story if you know what I mean, I’m afraid.
NM: So what happened to you? What did you do with your, after you left the RAF? At what point did you leave the RAF?
CC: Now when did I leave the RAF? Well generally speaking going, going back to civvy life you know. Nothing more, nothing less you know so I worked for the [pause], all I can remember you know when I went back to civvy life and onwards like that was that I picked out or I found out that if you worked for government place of any sort they paid your, oh my God I can’t remember, pension that’s what I was trying to think. They paid your pension and I thought oh you know sort of if I kept on till pensionable age you know and that would help to retirement which it did you know tremendously so you know very much so. I’ve never paid anything else since [laughs]. Oh dear, yeah.
NM: So you worked for the local government or council?
CC: Local government. The council. Then for some reason, I can’t remember why or how it was, I became clerk to the council of - cause I was living at, I was living at Waddington then I became clerk of the council at Waddington Parish Council. I was there for quite a long time you know. Yeah. What happened after then you know, for the life of me nothing of, sort of nothing to report on. Nothing at all that was
NM: Did you keep in touch with your crew at all after the war?
CC: Yes we did for, ‘cause I went, when our skipper died which was only, not so, not so long ago you know, sort of, well don’t know how much now but time marches on doesn’t it but yes we did in parts you know but we never really sort of got together as a crew if you know what I mean, you know, sort of. It’s all very misty that one is [laughs].
NM: You were very heavily involved with the Lincolnshire Lancaster Association weren’t you?
CC: Ahh yes.
NM: Tell me.
CC: Yes, yes, yeah, yes.
[pause]
I think that was all part of parcel of sort of keeping the connection going if you know what I mean, you know, sort of.
[pause]
I don’t know whether it did any, anything to keep it going but, because I often still, when I say recently I mean alright a few years have gone passed now and since the starting years that yes that was one of the things that did keep going. I was secretary to the Lincolnshire Lancaster Association for quite some, that, and then that became for some reason just couldn’t tell you why [unclear] associate sort of thing you know but it’s just all these things kept trying along, you know. When somebody asked me and nobody ever has you know apart from, I mean, I suppose that up to in inverted commas quite recently the, you know the chairman, you know we used to keep in touch with one another and one thing and another [unclear] died now died recently but apart from that that was it, you know. So of certainly until [unclear] asked questions about it I thought the thing had sort of died and [laughs]
NM: When you, when you look back on your time at Bomber
CC: [cough] sorry [cough]
NM: Are you alright
[cough]
[pause]
CC: Pass me that [cough]
[pause]
Sorry about that. I wasn’t
NM: Don’t worry. Don’t worry
CC: Talking a lot
NM: We’ll stop in just a minute.
[pause]
CC: That’s better
[pause]
CC: Sorry What, what was the last question?
NM: I was wondering what your thoughts are when you look back on your time at Bomber Command. What are your reflections?
CC: Nothing, nothing anything particular, you know. Had to be done [cough] Oh blast. No. Took it on as part and parcel as life’s, you know. A lot of it’s, I suppose, took on, you know, I really took it on sort of well thinking about what I did through the years was really what was concerned with the war and when there wasn’t the war and all that sort of thing, you know and it was that that was leading from one sort paragraph to another if you know what I mean. Yeah.
[pause]
CC: Yeah can’t think of anything else.
NM: How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
CC: Sorry
NM: How do you think Bomber Command has been treated since the war?
CC: Oh [pause] I’ve never really thought of anything in particular you know. It was just the sort of [unclear] what they wouldn’t have done today and then tomorrow and yesterday and, you know sort of just formed and reformed and put this and put that and that just, just things that just suited them you know. I suppose there must have been things that, I can’t remember any you know, that they did or didn’t do or this that and the other. Just took them for granted that it was it’s what you get when you’re in a certain position sort of plays around with, you know.
NM: Ok Colin thanks very much we’ll
CC: I’m sorry.
NM: Shall we, shall we’ll leave it there. No, that’s absolutely fine.
CC: Yeah. Nobody, nobody’s ever really asked me before you know. I suppose when I’m in bed tonight I shall think of all sorts of things. Well I don’t think I will. You know, oh dear, I’d have liked to have been a bit more precise but I don’t really know [unclear].
[pause]
[unclear]
NM: Can you say that again Colin.
Other: What did you qualify for Colin?
NM: What did you just say Colin?
CC: The naval quite a recent one though. The naval star. Running up to the North Pole and all that sort of thing.
NM: Oh the arctic convoys.
CC: Arctic convoys. Yeah
NM: And you qualified for that because?
CC: Yes I have.
NM: Because of the Tirpitz raid?
CC: Because of the Tirpitz well mainly because of the Tirpitz raid yes
Other: The Arctic Star
CC: Yeah
NM: So you qualified for the Arctic Star because of the raid on the Tirpitz?
[pause]
NM: So you joined in 1942 at Yatesbury.
CC: Oh yes, yes I went to the flying
NM: Yeah
CC: ‘Cause they wouldn’t have us, from what I remember we wouldn’t have a flying logbook of course until we started flying
NM: So Yatesbury. Barrow in Furness.
CC: Oh Barrow in Furness yes we did a gunnery course in Barrow in Furness.
NM: Market Harborough.
CC: Market Harborough and that was what was it [unclear] one of the train for aircrew, yes. Yes.
NM: That’s where you met up with John Leavitt?
CC: Yes
NM: John Leavitt.
CC: Yes it would be, yeah.
NM: Flying Wellingtons.
[pause]
CC: That was, that what’s its name has been kicked around well not kicked around ‘cause I used to keep it in the box on the hall of the house on the, you know sort of.
[pause]
CC: I kept them close. I didn’t think there would be other but other people were worried about it and I could understand that really because I understand they fetch a lot of money you see. Whatever they are you know [laughs].
NM: There was, so that was your first operation.
CC: Sorry?
NM: That was your first operation.
CC: Oh yes it was [laughs].
NM: The Tirpitz raid.
CC: Yes [laughs]
NM: Thirteen hours. Can you remember any other of your operations?
CC: I can’t just one or two odd ones. The funny part was that we, you see because there was that one and then the ones in between weren’t all that in number because we used to have to train for a lot of them you know.
[pause]
NM: Here’s the one on your 21st birthday.
CC: Sorry?
NM: Here’s the one on your 21st birthday. It was Lutz.
CC: Oh yes, Lutzow. Lutzow, that’s right.
NM: And you didn’t fly with John Leavitt that day you drove, you flew with Flight Lieutenant Price
CC: Oh there were probably other people as well of course ahum. Yeah there was that sort of officers
[pause]
I would probably go with some with quite a number probably you know.
NM: I see you took part in Exodus, the
CC: Sorry?
NM: I see you took part in Operation Exodus to recover prisoners of war.
CC: Oh yes there was that as well ahum.
[pause]
CC: You know I forgot about, well not forgotten about but at the back of my mind.
NM: Can you remember what the prisoners of war how they reacted when they saw you or were being flown home by you?
CC: I can’t actually no. I think they were, were the most had had enough of it, you know and were glad to get back.
NM: What about the Cooks tours. Did you take some of the ground crew?
CC: What was?
NM: Did you take some of the ground crews on some of the Cooks tours of some the targets?
CC: Oh Cooks tours.
NM: Yeah
CC: Oh yeah we used to go on those didn’t we yes.
NM: Can’t remember too much about it?
[pause]
CC: No. If somebody was going to come along twenty thirty forty years later you’d more write a journal wouldn’t you. It was more or less a blinking nuisance, you know
[pause]
I’m not trying to hide anything it was just a blooming nuisance. Having to lock up a log book up oh
[pause]
NM: So Operation Guzzle. Is that when you had to dispose of the Dams mines?
CC: Operation?
NM: Guzzle?
CC: Yes it was. Ahum.
NM: Ok.
CC: Aye Guzzle ahum. Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceInterview with Colin ColeDescriptionAn account of the resourceColin Cole was brought up and schooled at Twickenham, and worked for a time at W H Smith before joining the Royal Air Force. He trained as a wireless operator/air gunner at RAF Yatesbury and RAF Barrow in Furness. He then served with 617 Squadron, stationed at RAF Woodhall Spa and took part in the sinking of the Tirpitz. He was also involved in a number of other operations during and immediately after the war, in particular Tiger Force, Operation Exodus, Operation Guzzle and the Cook’s Tours.CreatorAn entity primarily responsible for making the resourceNigel MooreDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-08-24FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource01:17:44 audio recordingLanguageA language of the resourceengTypeThe nature or genre of the resourceSoundIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextAColeC150727CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.England--StainfieldEngland--LondonEngland--YatesburyEngland--Barrow in FurnessEngland--Woodhall SpaEngland--WaddingtonEngland--Market HarboroughGreat BritainPublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.ContributorAn entity responsible for making contributions to the resourceJulie WilliamsHeather HughesConforms ToAn established standard to which the described resource conforms.Pending review617 SquadronaircrewCook’s tourOperation CatechismOperation Exodus (1945)Operation GuzzleRAF Woodhall SpaRAF YatesburyTiger forceTirpitzwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/122/1239/PTaitJT1603.1.jpg1f0e1b7743013f7abbaeb37a251cda3aDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceTait, John John TaitJ T TaitDescriptionAn account of the resourceSix items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Warrant Officer John Thomas Tait (1923 - 2019, 175522 Royal Air Force), his service and release book and four photographs. John Tait flew 34 operations with 50 Squadron from RAF Skellingthorpe as a wireless operator / air gunner.
The collection has been donated to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by John Tait and catalogued by IBCC Digital Archive staff.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2016-06-10IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextTait, JTRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy.
The collection has been loaned to the IBCC Digital Archive for digitisation by [name of the lender] and catalogued by [name of the cataloguer].
Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceJohn Tait with a man and womanDescriptionAn account of the resourceThree people in a garden in front of a bungalow. Sergeant John Tait is on the on left holding a cigarette; and older bearded man is on the right, and elderly lady is seated between them.FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPTaitJT1603CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantCivilianRoyal Air ForcePublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.TypeThe nature or genre of the resourcePhotographSpatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great Britainaircrewwireless operator / air gunnerhttps://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/865/PYoungJ1512.1.jpgd8958118f9f315e65cf3b16d9490f2f9https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/files/original/88/865/PYoungJ1513.1.jpg20cbd2a6d89bc225d5996326d84f0f6bDublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceYoung, JohnJ YoungDescriptionAn account of the resource13 items. The collection consists of an oral history interview with Sergeant John Young (1569980, Royal Canadian Air Force), his logbook and 11 photographs of aircrew groups and Halifax aircraft. John Young was a flight engineer on 432 Squadron based at RAF East Moor, part of 6 Group. The collection shows a number of aircrew groups which include him as well as ground and air shots of his Halifax Mk 3 with Ferdinand II nose art.
The collection was donated by John Young and catalogued by Nigel Huckins.PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveDateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource2015-10-02IdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextYoung, JRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. Some items have not been published in order to protect the privacy of third parties, to comply with intellectual property regulations, or have been assessed as medium or low priority according to the IBCC Digital Archive collection policy and will therefore be published at a later stage. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collection-policy. Dublin CoreThe Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.TitleA name given to the resourceFirst day in the Canadian squadron 432DescriptionAn account of the resourceLine group of seven aircrew, all in uniform either battledress or tunics with appropriate brevets. Sergeant John Young is standing is on the extreme right. Captioned ‘Sgt Stedman P. F/O Gapes N. F/O Fox O/B W/O Hartley W/AG Sgt Cambell M/U Sgt Busby R/AG Sgt Young F/E. On the reverse ‘1944 Eastmoor First Day in the Canadian Squadron 432.’DateA point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource1944FormatThe file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resourceOne b/w photographIdentifierAn unambiguous reference to the resource within a given contextPYoungJ1512, PYoungJ1513CoverageThe spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevantRoyal Air ForceRoyal Canadian Air ForceRoyal Air Force. Bomber CommandTemporal CoverageTemporal characteristics of the resource.1944PublisherAn entity responsible for making the resource availableIBCC Digital ArchiveRightsInformation about rights held in and over the resourceThis content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.Spatial CoverageSpatial characteristics of the resource.Great BritainEngland--Yorkshire432 Squadronair gunneraircrewbomb aimerflight engineernavigatorpilotRAF East Moorwireless operatorwireless operator / air gunner